Caverns
by Koko-chan1
Summary: A boy wakes in the darkness alone, deathly ill, and without any memory of who he is. Twelfth in the Harlequin Series. Warning and rating for mention of rape and violence just to be safe, but nothing graphic. Kurama/Hiei, Kuwabara/Yukina, Yuusuke/Keiko


**Caverns**

by The Blue Spanch and Koko-chan

ooooo

 **A/N: Here it is, the longest and most involved story of the series. Warning for the mention of rape. No crack this time. We actually wrote a mostly serious story.**

ooooo

The pain held him in a mailed fist, and it would not let him go.

He could hardly breathe; his lungs trembled in a ribcage suddenly made too tight, and his heart labored to keep blood like treacle flowing through his veins. His stomach and bowels had emptied themselves long ago, but it only made things worse. His skin switched from burning to freezing frequently and without warning, and his muscles spasmed constantly.

The pain held him in a mailed fist, and it would not let him go.

Worse still were the visions that thumped through his fevered brain, convulsed his consciousness: A vision of something direful and scorning of their efforts, huge and hideous of aspect, and bottomlessly evil. It had taken the best they could throw at it without so much as breaking a sweat. Chillingly it derided him and his friends, and laughed when they ran to save their own lives from its whimsies. Gone to ground and under it, to regain strength that they never had in the first place... How could one destroy a true immortal?

The pain held him in a mailed fist, and it would not let him go.

ooooo

Relief!

The euphoria that came at the sudden absence of all pain nearly kept him from feeling the small bony hand that rested on his sweaty forehead. A soft, whispered conversation was going on above his head, and he strained to listen.

 _:Well?:_

 _:Human; demonic admixture perhaps 2 to 3 generations back. Talents from that.:_

 _:Yes, but royally ill, poor thing. Do you think he's salvageable?:_

 _:Maybe. Damage to the mind, I think. The bloodfire is very bad.:_

 _:Mushroom poisoning, no doubt, and far gone in it. Are you sure you can heal this kid without hurting yourself?:_

A thoughtful pause.

 _:I will pace. It would be wrongness for this one to leave. It would not fit.:_

 _:If you say so.:_

He opened his eyes to see those who had stopped the pain, and confusion met him. A pair of gentle grey cat's eyes peered into his own out of a smear of white, and behind them a mass of orange and gold burned coldly among pale slate; three green eyes in a row sailed the upper reaches of the fiery blur.

 _:Sleep,:_ murmured the pale figure, and he did.

ooooo

The world was a very small place for some time; felted orange fur kept oversensitive skin from scraping on bare stone, gentle hands stroked troublesome dreams away. There was water to cool a parched throat, and food to carefully fill an easily upset stomach. Moreover, there was always someone nearby, either the comforting furry bulk of the larger orange creature or the calm presence of the little white one. Every so often the latter of these two would lay a hand on the fevered forehead, and sit very still; a wave of blessed coolness would wash away pain for a while, and then sleep would come. Deep, deep sleep that dragged at the bones.

ooooo

Full awareness came as something of a shock to the sick boy. He found himself crowded up for warmth against a great orange-furred beast that snored softly beside him. The matting he lay on was actually a thick layer of shed fur. Small trickling noises emanated from a minuscule waterfall that leaked down the wall of the large cavern they were in, running eventually into a small, chilly-looking pool that had its own outlet through the floor. The floor itself was littered here and there with stacks of what looked to be dried vines of some sort, bits and pieces of something shell-like, and a few small piles of strange fruit and mushrooms.

Something about the waterfall was hauntingly familiar; the sound of falling water, the smell of the mineral traces in it... A picture of a fountain carved from solid basalt by a forgotten race floated through his mind, but slid away when he tried to follow it. With a groan, he realized that he could remember nothing before the awful sickness that had nearly killed him not so long ago.

At the sound, the big orange creature gave a soft snort, rolled over, and gathered the boy into its arms, rubbing his back and crooning comfortingly in a deep, soft voice. Despite his distress, he relaxed under the caresses. He was among friends, he was safe, he would get well, he would be strong again. With a sigh of contentment, he allowed himself to be soothed back into sleep.

ooooo

When next he woke, he woke alone. With a gasp of terror, he sat upright too fast, and his vision blurred and roared in his ears. "Where-" he cried, and then stopped, the hoarseness in his voice startling him.

Something off to his right hissed softly; when he looked up, he saw the little pale one, who was prodding at a small fire with a length of dried vine. The boy relaxed, weak with relief as his benefactor left the fire to bring him one of the strange fruits he had noted earlier. "Who are you?" The boy asked, biting into the fruit. It tasted sort of like grapefruit.

 _:Beni.:_ The white figure replied without speaking. _:And you?:_

The boy blinked at the pale one, uneasy with the way the words formed in his head without bothering to arrive at his ears first. Uneasy, he tried to answer. "I'm..."

The name would not come. To his growing horror, he could not recall his name. "I don't know." He choked, burying his face in his hands.

Beni watched him for a moment, and then got up. He dipped a bowl-shaped piece of shell into the pool, and then brought it back. _:Who is this?:_ he asked, setting the bowl down between them.

The boy looked at his reflection and almost didn't recognize it. Large dark eyes peered back at him out of a heart-shaped face worn too thin and pale by disease. His hair was dark, too, a sort of greeny-black, lank, and grown out of a short haircut. A small nose, long eyebrows, a mouth that had smiled a great deal in the past. As he sat and stared at the image, the knowledge trickled out of the blocked recesses of his brain like liquid silver. "Yuusuke." He said finally. "My name is Yuusuke."

Feeling very weak but much reassured by the memory of who he was, he sank back down on the matting, and Beni moved closer and sprinkled him with drops of cool water from the bowl. It felt very good.

 _:Your mind mends itself; this is good.:_ Beni said quietly, his voice an echo in Yuusuke's mind. _:Rest now. The sickness took too much from you- it frightened your memory so that it went to hide. I have made the sickness go away, but your body is very weak from it. Rom has gone to hunt meat for us.:_

The word "meat" was accompanied by a mental image of something huge, clawed, and dangerous, but coupled with the taste of sweet white flesh. Confused but willing to wait, Yuusuke finished off his fruit and studied his companion. Beni was tiny, even smaller than... than... He couldn't put a name to any short people he knew, but Beni was even smaller than them, and quite thin and delicate-looking. His skin and hair were the same white as new-fallen snow, and there was something definitely catlike about him; the way he moved, the calm gaze from those slit-pupilled eyes. Other than that, he looked human.

There was a rumble of stone grating on stone behind them, and Beni's head snapped around for a look, body gone suddenly tense. Yuusuke could understand his nervousness- there were scars on that pale throat, barely visible, from when someone or something had tried to kill him. Yuusuke rolled over for a look at the invader. A large stone that blocked a tunnel leading out of the far end of the room was being ponderously moved out of the way by something big, orange, and hairy. Beni immediately lost all fear and made a strange twittering noise in welcome, the first actual vocal sound that Yuusuke had heard him utter, and got a friendly rumble in reply.

Yuusuke could not help but stare at the new arrival. Its body shape was different from his own, but familiar; the words 'leonine' and 'centaur' crept into his mind. Clad in long, silky, bright flame-orange fur was a seamless combination of big cat and humanoid, a tiger without stripes from the waist down. A long, gleaming tuft of hair tipped the long lion's tail, and the shoulders and arms were well-muscled under all that fur. The creature's facial features were thick, almost orcish, with three lambent green eyes in a row, deep-set under a heavy brow. A luxurious golden mane crowned the head, and two long antelope horns speared up from just above its temples. Pointed ears flicked at the sides of its head, ruffling the mane.

Yuusuke had an odd feeling that this creature should be much bigger, longer, hairless, bright red, and four-armed. He hadn't the slightest idea why he thought this.

The creature rolled the rock back into position over the tunnel mouth, ambled over, and placed what had to be the biggest crab that Yuusuke had ever seen at Beni's feet. "How's he doing?" It asked, in the same deep, soft voice that had quietened Yuusuke's nightmares time and time again.

 _:Better.:_ Beni replied, inspecting the crab. _:The sickness is gone, and his memory creeps back in small parts. His name is Yuusuke.:_

"That's good to hear." The creature gave Yuusuke an affectionate smile and stroked his hair gently. "Thought we might lose you, kid. I'm Romfelemars, Rom for short. You feeling up to spidercrab for dinner?"

Yuusuke blinked and tried to come up with a reply, but his stomach answered for him with a twisting growl of its own. One fruit did not a full meal make! "I suppose so." He said, making Rom chuckle.

He was hungrier than he thought he would be, stuffing his face full of crab with gusto. It was delicious, steamed in its shell and sprinkled with juice squeezed from the fruits. With a contented burp, he leaned back against Rom and fell asleep.

 _:Deep Springs, when next he wakes.:_ Beni said with a sniff. _:He smells unclean.:_

"Him and us both, my friend." Rom replied calmly, extending a claw to tease the last shreds of meat from the crab's carapace. "Admit it, we could use a slosh-off."

oooooo

" _Shit!_ " Yuusuke cried in frustration as his knees buckled under him, forcing him to grab hold of Rom's fur to keep from sliding into an ungraceful heap on the floor.

"Go easy on yourself, Yuusuke," Rom chided, easing the angry teenager back to his feet, "people who dance with the Reaper generally don't have much strength in their legs for a long time afterwards."

"Just great." Yuusuke muttered sourly as he tried to get his knees to stop shaking. "Get sick for a little while and everything falls apart."

"You're grip's still good, at least." Rom winced at having his hair pulled and settled for scooping the protesting boy up onto his back. "Now listen up, kid, there are certain things you should know about life down here. First things first: The food chain. You're part of it, and you're not on the top."

Yuusuke blinked. "You mean there's man-eaters out there?"

"Most things down here will jump at the chance to get a little meat. They don't care what kind of meat. Some of 'em go for souls instead, and leave the meat for the rest." Rom shuddered. "The worst of 'em are the Whisperers, and they're all but invisible, like faint shadows. They call you by name in the voices of your best friends, soft and far away. Once they corner you, they rip out your soul and devour it and then clear out of there before the Bonewraiths come to see what all the fuss is about. That's the thing, you see. Noise attracts predators, so be absolutely silent when we go out! Beni's done something to the walls of this cave that keeps the Whisperers out, but speech still makes him very nervous, even if he can't make any."

Yuusuke frowned. "Those scars on his neck-"

"Yeah," Rom sighed, "he lost his voice to some mad scientist with a knife, and then most of the speech center of his brain to an insane mind-reader. He only puts up with our chattering to be polite. By the way, if you need to say something outside, just think it. He makes it so we can hear each other. Now where was I?"

"Bonewraiths."

"Right. Bonewraiths love to eat Whisperers, but they'll go for carrion, too. That applies to any soulless husks lying around. They'll shred and devour the corpse, leaving only a mangled skeleton for the spidercrabs and crickets to fight over. Oddly enough, they won't go after the living.

"The crickets aren't anything to worry about -they're quite tasty when roasted, you know- but the spidercrabs can be hair-raising. They get up to five feet wide, not counting the legs, with three or more sets of claws. Given the slightest chance, they'll rip the living flesh off your bones without bothering to kill you first. There's also a bunch of ordinary folks from the Makai or Reikai or wherever, either flipped out on the dream 'shrooms or dying from the poison 'shrooms, poor bastards."

"Then why did you save my life and not theirs?" Yuusuke asked.

"Beni sensed you were different, somehow, a piece of something bigger. I haven't the faintest idea of what he's talking about, but I've trusted his judgement for far too long to start doubting him now. Speaking of Beni, we'd better get going before he leaves without us."

Beni was, in fact, sitting by the doorstone, fidgeting with impatience. As Rom moved the boulder aside, Yuusuke felt a faint feather-touch flick over his mind; then he was abruptly aware of his two companions as he had never been aware of anyone before. Rom was a calm, warm ocean of controlled strength, unafraid of the hazards of the outer caverns, but duly cautious of them. Beni was radically different; a glittering threefold current of emotion, instinct, and memory, crackling with eagerness to be gone. There was something strangely alien about him, however, something that made the hairs on the back of Yuusuke's neck stand on end as he tried to puzzle out that strangeness. Beni was a triple being, he realized with a start. There was a taste of human in his mental makeup, but a kind of human that didn't fit. The rest was split evenly between an ordinary house cat and something bright, ancient, and terrible...

"Beni's not from around here, is he?" Yuusuke whispered to Rom.

"Nope." Rom grunted, setting the doorstone in place. "He was here for a long time before I ever set foot in this place. I dunno where he's from- hells, _he_ doesn't know where he's from. All he cares is that _here_ is better than _there_ and won't explain further than that. Now quiet! We're moving out into Caverns Proper."

"Caverns Proper" was a dim, twisting labyrinth of natural caves, lit by the pale, luminous flowers of a network of vines that Beni called ghost creepers. Six-inch blind crickets rustled ceaselessly among the star-shaped blossoms and clusters of tiny black leaves, feeding off the nectar and what fruits were left by hungry passers-by. Sounds were amplified and strangely twisted by the unusual acoustics of the cave system; weird, eerie groans echoed distantly at them and faded away. Screaming mad laughter erupted from a cul-de-sac, only to be cut off abruptly as they rounded a corner. Somewhere, someone began to sing the first verse of an old nursery song over and over again until that, too, disappeared. A bloodcurdling wail of utter despair suddenly lashed their ears, making Rom jump and Yuusuke gasp. Beni hissed angrily, and led them directly away from the shrieking.

 _:Whisperer?:_ Yuusuke asked, shivering.

Beni flashed angry confirmation. _:It feeds. It delights in the agony of the prey. Perhaps the Bonewraithes will return the favor.:_

 _:I hope so.:_ Rom emoted uneasily.

The remainder of their journey was a nervous one, but uneventful. The tunnel opened abruptly before them, and the suddenly warm, moist air was filled with the gentle splashing of water and the sharp, mineral smell of hotsprings. Three roiling pools took up most of the room, steaming seductively in the half-light of the ghost creepers. Rounded stone formations around the edges of the pools offered comfortable soaking spots as well; in short, the urge to get really clean was irresistible for the three new arrivals, and they wasted no time in getting in. Rom plunged in with an almighty splash and sank right up to the eyebrows before hitting bottom, forcing Yuusuke to swim for it. Beni entered the water with somewhat more decorum, pausing to shuck his worn grey garments before climbing in.

 _:Was that really necessary, Rom?:_ Yuusuke grumped, hauling himself up on a submerged stone. The big orange furball merely laughed silently at him and rolled over in the water, creating a miniature tidal wave. _:What the hell,:_ Yuusuke sighed inwardly, pulling off his stained and torn shirt, _:my clothes needed a wash, anyway.:_

So did they. Clouds of accumulated grime temporarily fogged the water as they scrubbed each other down, followed by huge clumps of shed fur from Rom; apparently the damp and the heat had triggered his master fur-release system- he was losing hair like a collie in August. To make things worse, Beni insisted on grooming him, which released so much more fur into the water that Yuusuke had to move into another pool before he inadvertently became a yeti impersonator. He settled for washing out his clothes and getting a long soak in while Beni and Rom concentrated on getting all the tangles out. This took quite some time, there being a great deal of Rom to go over. Yuusuke fell asleep long before they were done.

ooooo

 _:Wake; we return home now.:_

"Unh?" Yuusuke awoke with a start. The monster from his fever dreams had been stalking him again.

 _:Rise and shine, boyo, you've steeped long enough in that pool. Can't have you turning into a prune on us, can't we?:_

 _:Maybe prunes know something we don't, Rom.:_ Yuuske growled, pulling on his damp clothes and joining Beni up on Rom's broad back.

:Maybe,: Rom replied as they left the hotsprings, _:remind me to ask them later.:_

Yuusuke glowered at the back of Rom's head. For a moment, he was powerfully reminded of some sort of clown, one that was as aggravating as it was funny. He shook his head sourly. If only his memory would come back!

ooooo

They ran into a trio of Bonewraithes on the way back. The three creatures were finishing off what the Whisperer had left behind, a sort of lizardlike thing with heavy scales. The Bonewraithes were aptly named; they resembled human skeletons, but only up to a point. Finger- and toe bones ended in hooked talons, jaws were lined with fangs designed solely for tearing flesh, and the skulls were crowned with thatches of coarse, dark hair. The ribcages were larger, and the breastbone had become a keel like a bird's, and sturdy wingbones that resembled a cross between a bat's and a butterfly's sprouted from the shoulders. Deep shadow strung between the wing-fingers served for flight membrane, a deep red glow hovered in the ribcages where their hearts should have been, and a pale radiance gleamed from the eyesockets. When they caught sight of Yuusuke and the others, they began to hiss malevolently and rattle their wingbones with aggression.

 _:Go!:_ Beni prodded Rom back into motion. _:Their meat, not ours. They will attack if we do not leave. Their bite is lethal.:_

Rom didn't bother to argue. Bonewraithes gave him the creeps.

ooooo

Yuusuke regained his strength slowly, but with dogged determination, walking and eventually running around the home cavern with increasing ease and speed. Trickles of memory returned steadily as well; he could now remember a fair amount of his childhood, and a number of fragments that meant nothing to him as yet. Not that he had much time to sit around cudgeling his stubborn amnesia. Rom and Beni insisted on teaching him how to survive in the subterranean labyrinth, an exercise that always left him exhausted. Mind you, it came greatly in handy. Aside from the obvious lessons on how to avoid predators, getting enough food to feed all of them was a constant worry, and any little help he could give was help well received. Yuusuke learned that the crickets were easy and delicious prey, tasting like fresh waterchestnuts when roasted. He learned which mushrooms to harvest and which to avoid like the plague, where the best fruits grew on the ghost creeper vines, and how to pull down and dry the creepers themselves for firewood. The one prey that he had no luck with at all were the blind fish that lived in deep, dark pools some distance from the home cavern. Though sightless, the fish were very sensitive to vibration and the slightest fidget sent them streaking for the depths. Beni was the only one of their group with the statuelike patience required to catch these nervous fish, but the taste and texture of these fish was well worth the wait.

ooooo

"Arise and awake, my beamish boy," Rom rumbled, shaking Yuuske awake, "time to get in your morning exercises. Today we teach you to hunt spidercrab without getting maimed in the process."

Yuusuke groaned, rolled over, and told Rom what he could do with his damned spidercrabs.

Rom sniffed primly and rolled Yuusuke right into the cold pool. "Don't be ridiculous." He said as Yuusuke squawked and lurched out of the icy water. "I'm not equipped for that sort of thing."

"Could've fooled me." Yuusuke muttered darkly, wringing out his shirt. "All right, so how do you hunt spidercrabs?"

"There's a bunch of ways," Rom began, "for instance, before I teamed up with him, Beni used to go after the little ones by pestering them to death, but that takes too much time. I used to just throw rocks at them until they broke, but that sort of thing tended to attract unwelcome attention. The way we do it now, he dances around in front of the critter and distracts it while I grab the hind legs and bash it into the wall a few times. Now that you're upright and mobile, kid, we'll be able to haul in some big ones."

"Do I get to help you bash it to death?" Yuusuke asked.

"Naah, you're not built for that sort of hauling, not with the big ones. Spidercrabs grow extra sets of fighting claws as they get bigger, and an extra pair of eyestalks to keep track of 'em, too. We've only been able to bring in the small-to-medium sizes because the big ones can focus in on more than one enemy at once. This is a bad thing. One snip from a fighting claw could cost you your life, and the reach on those things is incredible! They're fast, too. When we meet the beast, give it lots of room, hear?"

"Yes, sensei!"

"Good boy. Go do your laps."

Yuusuke put his damp shirt back on and trotted off across the room. Rom watched him for a few minutes, and then moved over to the far wall. Shortly after, he felt Beni's slight weight land on his withers. Beni had been busy skittering up and down the network of ghost creepers that matted the walls in search of ripe fruit, and now offered one to Rom.

 _:Are you sure he's ready for this?:_ The hairy centauroid asked his companion silently, crunching the tart fruit. _:He's better, but his reflexes are still too slow for spidercrab hunting.:_

 _:I will guide him.:_ Beni said, infuriatingly calm. _:Whether he is ready or not does not matter this time; something important will happen this hunt. Another piece will join us. There will be meat enough to feed us all.:_

Rom gave an exasperated snort and glared at Beni. _:Another piece of what, Beni? I didn't understand what you meant the first time, when we dragged that scrawny, mushroom-poisoned wreck back here, and I don't get it now! Speak clearly for once, will you?:_

Beni gave it his best shot. _:A piece of something important, something greater than the sum of its parts, something to level the balance, to make wrong things not, something to... to...:_ Beni frowned, looking for the right words and finding none that would suffice. Instead, he lifted his catlike eyes to Rom's gleaming green ones and opened his mind.

Rom almost fell as the feelings and impressions struck him like a tidal wave. _:-Different disparate displaced unlike and yet so alike four parts all come together by free will by force become choice become love power not infinite but close so very close all pointed in one direction directed at the darkness from the light courage like the light like the sun that never sets that never gives up no matter how many times the flame is put out broken captured hidden always burning back young strong forever Farseer Dragonbond Hybrid Twiceborn four against the terror of the chaos destruction death desolation dark-eternal-:_

 _:Oh.:_ Rom said very quietly, stomach churning uneasily, knees weak.

 _:Yuusuke is part of that. He is the Hybrid. I feel we will meet one of the others this hunt.:_

 _:Yeh. Remind me never to ask you to explain anything ever again.:_

Beni's only reply to that was a whisper of amusement.

Yuusuke trotted up to them at that point, breathing a little hard from his exertions. "Okay, I'm ready to go. Hey, Rom, you don't look so good. Something you ate didn't agree with you?"

Rom shook his head, eyes troubled. "I asked Beni the wrong question, is all. I'll be fine."

Yuusuke gave Beni a suspicious look, which was returned impassively. "What did he do to you?"

"He gave me the answer, kid. It's my brain, not my stomach that's sore." Rom sighed. "C'mon, let's get going."

ooooo

The tunnels that Beni led them down went deep, very deep. They could feel the massive weight of the earth around them, pressing down from above, pulling from below. The still air had an odd salty tint to it here, and the light-giving mats of ghost creepers were much fewer and further between. Skitters and chittering noises rustled eerily from dark passages, and the oppressive feeling of being watched was thick enough to make bricks out of. The only living things they saw were the occasional cricket or tiny spidercrabs, no bigger across than a bottlecap.

Eventually they came to a bubble-like, dimly-lit nexus of four wide passages, where they stopped. Beni hopped down from Rom's shoulders, extended a set of translucent cat's claws from his fingertips and raked them noisily over the stone floor; a very annoying sound. He kept it up until a steady clacking sound heralded the arrival of their prey. Rom glanced at Yuusuke, catching his eye. _:Follow Beni's lead on this one, kid. In fact, stay behind him. I don't trust your speed quite yet, and this crab sounds like a big one.:_

Yuusuke nodded agreement, and took up his position as Rom backed into a darkened passage to wait. The clacking grew louder, closer, and finally the far tunnel disgorged a monster. It stepped warily into the room, peering about itself with four garnet eyes the size of golf balls. It was mottled in various shades of grey and black and moved easily despite its bulk on long, bristly legs. At four feet across, the heavy carapace, scored and pitted from past battles, could have served as a coffee table. In the back of Yuusuke's mind, a creature of dark-patterned and deadly violence gave vent to chilling metallic laughter, freezing his spine. This oversized crustacean was not to be taken lightly. _:You will move to the left of it;:_ Beni informed him, a strange excitement sparkling in that alien mind. _:I will move to the front. Stay near the walls and tunnel mouths- do not go near it! Act dream-addled.:_

Beni rose to his feet and pirouetted out of hiding, making clicking noises with his tongue. Yuusuke swallowed hard and followed him out on all fours. The crab came to attention immediately, spreading its four huge fighting claws into the ready position. It began a rasping chitter, a disgustingly eager noise as it spotted apparently helpless prey, segmented mandibles writhing sickeningly with anticipation. The spidercrab hesitated a moment, trying to decide which of them to go after first, and settled on Yuusuke, for he was a larger and more succulent morsel than Beni's bony frame. Yuusuke jumped away just in time as the monster lunged forward, snapping a thorny claw longer than his torso at him. It closed on empty air, tips grating harshly over stone with a sound like thumbtacks scraping over blackboards. With a rasp of rage, it came after him, swinging claw after claw at him until it pinned him in a corner. Seeing no escape on either side, Yuusuke dove underneath the low-slung creature, crawling between the long legs as fast as he could. Unable to reach beneath itself, the spidercrab settled for trying to trample him until a shrill whistle distracted it. It paused just long enough for Beni to throw a stone that took one of its eyestalks off at the root. Gouting thin pink fluids from its ruined member, the crab shrieked in utter fury and sprang after its attacker, claws clashing angrily. Rom seized both his chance and the crab's hind legs at that point, bracing his forelegs and smashing the flailing horror into the wall with a loud grunt. Rattling its mandibles in manic fury, the monster lurched up from the floor, removing a tuft of fur from Rom's hind leg with a lucky snap of a claw as he sprang away. Again, Beni and Yuusuke did their best to draw the beast's attention until Rom could give it another slam, and each time it scraped itself up off the floor to attack again. Although its legs wobbled more and more with each stunning blow it received, the crab tired a lot slower than Rom, Beni, and Yuusuke did, and it wouldn't let up for a minute. _:We may have to run for it, guys,:_ Rom gasped as the crab once again rose up snapping, _:I'm almost pooped and this thing refuses to break!:_

"Oh, no you don't!" A new voice shouted from a side passage, startling them all. A tall young man with a sword of golden light dashed out of the passage and crashed into the crab, throwing it off balance. He staggered back, got his breath, and continued shouting at the confused monster. "I have you now, you murdering sushi-bait! Take that and that and that!" He swung the sword violently around him, slicing through a stalagmite, several feet of unoffending air, and one of the crab's legs, nearly severing it.

The creature squealed in real pain and lurched away, dragging its injured leg behind it. The man followed it at a run, laughing breathlessly and mocking its cowardice. It would have been more impressive if he hadn't tripped on a lump of stone. Seeing its enemy sprawled flat on his face, the crab lurched in for the kill. The man, seemingly unaware of his predicament, pulled himself into a low crouch and sprang up forcefully, banging his head on the crab's underside and spearing it through the mandibles with the sword quite by accident. Instantly killed by the blade thrust into its brain, the crab collapsed motionless on top of its killer.

Rom, Beni, and Yuusuke stared with amazed disbelief at the dead crab and the guy struggling to get out from under it. _:Have any of you seen anything like that before?:_ Rom asked weakly.

Beni thought for a moment, but shook his head. On the other hand, the arrival of the gallant crab-slayer had jostled some of Yuusuke's memories loose. _:I have.:_ He said with a rueful smile. _:I know this guy. Help me get this thing off of him.:_

With their help, the newcomer pried himself free, and then ran his fingers over the crab's carapace, stopping when he found some recent scores. "Hah! So I did get you at last! That'll teach you to eat my new jacket."

Yuusuke had the grace to look embarrassed. "Only you would seek revenge for a jacket." He sighed. "Hi, Kuwabara."

"Yuusuke, that you?" Kuwabara said with a grin, reaching out to grab Yuusuke's arm. "Damn, man, you've gone all skinny. I'd say that I was really happy to see you again, but it's too dark for that."

"Dark?" Yuusuke said, surprised. "Kuwabara, I can see just fine."

Kuwabara scowled at Yuusuke, bringing his eyes into full view for the first time; a milky film had coated them, rendering him sightless. "No way! We're in a cave, Yuusuke, it's dark in caves."

"Your Rei Sword glows in the dark, remember?" Yuusuke informed him.

Kuwabara was silent for a moment as he digested this fact. "I'm blind, aren't I."

"Yup."

"Shit."

Rom glanced at Beni while Yuusuke comforted his friend. _:This guy's one of the pieces?:_

:Yes.: Beni replied, climbing up onto Rom's back. _:The Farseer.:_

 _:A blind Farseer and a Hybrid without a full memory. What next?:_

 _:I do not know. I may return his sight, but later. We are courting disaster sitting here.:_

 _:You've got a point.:_ "Heads up, kids," Rom rumbled softly, "we'd better get home before something else decides to try eating us."

As if to illustrate his point, a Bonewraith swooped silently in and landed with a clatter on the shortened stalagmite. Beni hissed ferociously at the scavenger, scrambling down from his perch and grabbing hold of one of the crab's claws. _:Our meat! Get ye gone!:_

"Who's there?" Kuwabara said, turning toward the unfamiliar voices.

"Friends." Rom answered shortly, taking hold of another claw. "Now shut up, grab crab, and follow us."

Kuwabara blinked in confusion, but followed instructions, following Yuusuke and the others away up the tunnel with a cluster of legs held tightly in his arms. The Bonewraith watched them go impassively. There would be other things for it to eat later.

ooooo

Kuwabara let out a belch that shook fruits off of the ghost creepers and sighed contentedly. "Man, what an improvement," he said, waving a bit of empty shell at the others, "I dunno about you guys, but living off of mushrooms is a pain in the butt."

"How'd you manage that?" Rom asked. "Yuusuke here tried it and wound up mostly dead."

"Well, you see," Kuwabara smirked proudly, "I've got the gene."

"The gene?" Yuusuke asked, scowling.

"Yeah. You probably skipped the chemistry class for it, but my chem teacher once brought in a bunch of little slips of paper with some chemical or other on 'em. Most of us couldn't taste anything but paper when we tried them, but me and a few others had to put up with the nastiest flavor all day. Yech! Not even beer could get it out! Anyway, the teacher told us that those of us whose taste buds were going on strike had an old gene that was used for finding edible mushrooms back in the caveman days. I just didn't eat anything that tasted awful, is all."

 _:Wise of you.:_ Beni said, and reached over to touch him on the forehead. _:Stay still, Farseer, that I may return your sight to you.:_

"Wha-?" Kuwabara gasped, and then froze midword as the milky cataracts melted from his eyes.

"That was quick." Rom murmured to Beni while Kuwabara concentrated on trying to look at everything at once.

 _:Flareblind, nothing more.:_ Beni replied, washing his hands and face in the pool. _:He looked into something too bright for him. There was little real damage at all.:_ With that, he curled up between Rom's forelegs and fell asleep.

"Hey! Nobody told me that the little guy was a healer!" Kuwabara sputtered, rubbing at his face.

"You never asked." Rom replied, stroking Beni's ice-white hair. "He can't do it very much or very often, though. I think it has to do with the lack of sunlight."

"Huh. Just who are you two, anyway?" Kuwabara demanded.

"That's Romfelemars, Rom for short," Yuusuke introduced them, "And the smaller one is Beni. Guys, this is Kuwabara, one of my friends."

"Hi." Rom said, reaching out a hand toward Kuwabara.

"Hi." Kuwabara answered a bit gingerly as his hand was enveloped by Rom's hairy orange one. Kuwabara paused for a moment; the texture of the fur was very familiar... "Ooo." He said, a big silly grin spreading over his face. "Kitty fur. _Nice_ kitty."

Yuusuke broke into helpless giggles- he couldn't help it.

Rom gave him a dirty look. "Care to explain this nonsense?"

"You're looking at one of the biggest cat lovers in all three worlds." Yuusuke said between chortles. "Sorry, Rom."

Kuwabara moved around and started scratching Rom at the base of the neck, deep under the mane, and making little meowing noises. Rom looked for a moment like he was contemplating murder. Thinking better of it, Rom let out a gusty sigh of resignation. "What the hell. Hair of carrot, tact of brick. I've been there. Welcome to the team, Kuwabara."

"Meow."

In order to head off the explosion, Yuusuke decided to change the subject. "So, what are you doing down here, Kuwabara?"

"Same thing you are, man." Kuwabara replied. "Trying to stay alive, and maybe find the others while I'm at it."

"What others?" Yuusuke asked, confused. He couldn't recall anything about any others.

Kuwabara stopped stroking Rom's fur and stared at his friend. "What others?! Kurama and Hiei, of course."

Blank look from Yuusuke.

"The fox and the shrimp," Kuwabara tried again. "Y'know, the other half of the Reikai Tante, hell, the flippin' Urameshi team! Don't tell me you've forgotten them."

"I led a team?" Yuusuke murmured half to himself.

"Remember I told you that he'd eaten the wrong mushrooms a while ago?" Rom prodded the fuming redhead in the ribs with an elbow. "If Beni hadn't purged him of the poison, he'd have been dead a long time since. The fever fried his memory and he can't remember squat."

"I can remember most of my childhood, some parts of school, and my mother." A wicked gleam dawned in Yuusuke's eyes. "And that time you put that big wind-up rubber spider in the punch that one New Year's party right before Shizaru filled her glass."

Kuwabara groaned. "You would remember that. We never did get the stains out of the ceiling. Anything else?"

"Nope. As far as I can tell, my current history begins in a side tunnel, being horribly sick. Sorry."

"Don't be. At least you could see."

"Not with the hallucinations I had to deal with. How did we wind up down here, anyway?"

Kuwabara leaned back against Rom's flank with a mournful expression. "It's a long story. You want to hear about it, or should I fill you in on what we were doing working for a demigod first?"

Yuusuke swallowed hard. "I think I want to hear about the demigod."

Kuwabara crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling for a moment before beginning. "About four or five years ago, you got hit by a car on the way home from school. It killed you."

" _What?!_ "

"Shut up and listen. Anyway, the Angel of Death, who's a really cute girl named Botan, by the way, found out that you'd knocked off too early. That's when Koenma, Enma's kid, offered you a chance to come back to life. You never really told us all that much about what you had to do, but you did have to pass some important tests before you came back. The last one, I think, was finding someone to give your body a smooch at the right time." Kuwabara shuddered briefly, remembering a dreadful nightmare. "Fortunately, that was Keiko, your girlfriend, and she came close to being too late. After that, you had to become a Spirit Detective for Koenma to pay for your resurrection. I got hauled in later for my vital talents, of course. Kurama and Hiei were a couple of criminals from the Makai who got forced into public service with us for stealing a few really hazardous magical items. Even with that little monster with us, we really got to be a great team, trashing bad guys from one end of the Makai to the other! We even held our own in the Ankoku Bujutskai, we're that good."

"So, what happened?" Yuusuke asked, gesturing with one hand to indicate the Caverns.

"Enma decided to take us seriously for once." Kuwabara shook his head in disgust. "Enma takes all of his son's little hobbies with a big grain of salt, including the Reikai Tante. Don't blame him, though; Koenma's such a pesty little wimp most of the time. Enma decided to give us a real challenge by sending us out after an old enemy of his, a sadistic freak named Kyaku."

Rom stiffened at the sound of that name. "Kyaku." He growled. "Too much to hope that the bastard got himself killed, I guess."

"You ran into him too?" Kuwabara asked.

"Oh, yeah." Rom's three eyes glinted dangerously. "Damn near every living thing in these caves and an awful lot of dead things, too, owe their situation to Kyaku's lousy sense of humor. I tried to make him pay for a few extra things he did, but..." Rom flicked his fingers helplessly. "How do you drop an immortal of that caliber?"

"We were hoping you might be able to give us some tips?" Yuusuke said with a weak laugh.

Rom chuckled bitterly. "No help here. You might ask Beni, though. Lately, he's been coming up with all sorts of weird trivia."

They all looked speculatively at the smallest member of the group. Beni continued to snooze, completely unaware of their interest.

They did ask him later, just to see if the tiny, pale child could answer the question; they met with no success at all. It wasn't that Beni couldn't grasp the concept of immortality, it was the concept of _time_ that had him all confused. _:What is time?:_ He asked irritably. _:There is Now, there is Then, and there is Later. Greater and lesser Time is not our worry. That is our Brother's department. This Kyaku thing is finite, anyway. It will expire Later.:_

After that, he refused to say anything at all, and Rom persuaded the others not to push him. "Something I learned right from the start, guys- when Beni starts talking about his family or himself in plurals, don't keep asking! If you annoy him, he'll answer your questions. Take my word for it- you _don't_ want those answers."

"If you say so, Rom." Kuwabara said, and then scowled thoughtfully. "Hold it. He said that Kyaku was finite- what's that mean?"

"That he can be killed." Yuusuke replied slowly, tasting the notion. He liked it.

ooooo

As part of the group, Kuwabara also had to learn the same lessons that Yuusuke had received; what was safe to eat, and how to avoid those creatures that would enjoy eating him. He caught on easily, and turned out to be a great help in spidercrab hunts. That Rei Sword of his was a potent weapon. He also tried to jog Yuusuke's impaired memory, but with limited success only; Yuusuke couldn't for the life of him remember anything about the other two members of the Reikai Tante, and nothing of the team's adventures, either. Straining to recall these things only gained him a dreadful headache that made him absolutely miserable until Beni took pity on him and banished the pain with an admonishment. _:Not to rush it,:_ he was told, time and time again. More often than not, Kuwabara was scolded for egging Yuusuke on.

Kuwabara took Beni's irritation rather poorly, however; Beni made Kuwabara nervous. The three-layered strangeness of the pale child's mind that had startled Yuusuke was even more unnerving for Kuwabara, whose strong psychic gift made him far more sensitive to such things. To Kuwabara, Beni's mind was a strange, interconnected veil of feline and basic human instincts and emotions, a veil that concealed an inconceivable entity that gazed back at all other beings with the same intensity and indifference as a science professor looking at an interesting new bacterium through a microscope.

Rom was a different matter entirely. Rom, no matter what he looked like to the naked eye, was a great big fuzzy orange kitty-cat with lots of long, silky orange fur that just begged to be petted. And since when could Kuwabara resist petting a cat?

Rom grumbled about this -albeit not much- and settled for shedding all over the man whenever they went down to Deep Springs for a bath.

ooooo

Romfelemars knew something was up the moment that his diminutive partner snapped awake one "morning". Beni seemed to bore through the very stone with his intent gaze, and stayed stock still in absolute concentration for several minutes. He then relaxed, trotted over to Rom, and began to comb tangles out of the thick fur with his claws. "What was that all about?" Rom whispered; the others were still asleep, and he didn't really want to disturb them.

 _:Crickets today, I think,:_ Beni replied cheerfully, _:and maybe some fish, too.:_ His mental images of sweet, crackly crickets and the delicious taste of blind cave fish were sufficient to rouse Yuusuke and Kuwabara from their slumber. _:Also, another Piece if we go soon.:_ He added privately to Rom.

 _:Izzat so?:_ "C'mon, you guys, up and at 'em." Rom reached over and prodded Yuusuke's shoulder.

"I'd rather eat a bug." Kuwabara growled.

Yuusuke sat up with a huge yawn. "You've been eating them ever since you joined up with us, Kuwabara."

"I know that, and it's been a real pain in the butt!" Kuwabara groaned with longing. "I'd kill for a bowl of rice and pickled vegetables right now."

"I feel for you, man," Rom said, hauling himself to his feet, "but the only pickle you'll find down here are the brine pits where the spidercrabs go to lay their eggs, and only suicidal types risk going there."

Kuwabara fixed Rom with a jaundiced glare. "Have you ever tried?"

"Once, and it wasn't worth the trip." Rom replied, making a face. "I damn near lost an arm, and all for a handful of squashy, slimy round things that tasted of moldy avocado. It ain't worth it, kid."

Not long after their discussion, they were wandering the dim-lit twists and turns of Caverns Proper, hunting crickets and occasionally stopping to let Beni catch a few fish. Their woven-vine baskets were nearly full when Yuusuke spotted a furtive movement in a small alcove. This wouldn't have been of interest usually; they sometimes discovered the other denizens of the cave system wandering blearily around the tunnels near the home cavern or lying in various stages of drugged stupor or death on the floor. Yuusuke and the others had come further than they normally did in search of food, and thus all foreign motion was suspect. Mentally alerting the others, Yuusuke moved forward to investigate. He managed to catch a glimpse of a long, soft-grey shape and the gleam of a yellow eye before the ghost creepers suddenly tore themselves off of the wall and tangled him up in their coils. A series of grunts and yelps of protest behind him informed him that the others hadn't escaped the rough treatment either.

"I've got you now, you disgusting perverts," an oddly familiar voice, dripping with malice, trickled out of the darkness with an insane giggle. "Think you'd have me so easily again? Oh, no, not so. I think I will have my friendly little vines rip off your genitals and force-feed them to you. Then I'll let them grow some thorns, nice long ones, and we'll see how long it takes to flay you right down to the bone. I'd like that. Wouldn't you?"

"No." Rom answered promptly.

"Holy shit!" Kuwabara exclaimed. "What'd we ever do to you, Kurama?"

There was a startled pause from the person in the alcove.

"Kurama?" Yuusuke said, head suddenly full of memories of a tall redhead and a taller silver Kitsune. "What happened to you?"

Long, silent pause. "Kuwabara?" The voice quavered with emotion. "Yuusuke? Is that really you?"

"It had better be," Kuwabara growled, struggling in the vines. "If it isn't, I'm gonna file a complaint."

The vines tightened convulsively for a moment, then relaxed, crawling back to their proper place on the walls of the cave. "You might as well come in, then." Kurama said dully from the shadows. "Just don't get too close."

There was barely enough room at the opening for all of them to squeeze in, and a pathetic sight met their eyes. Scrawny, filthy, nearly naked, and with hair and tail matted and dirty, Kurama sat at the back of the alcove, staring at them with eyes both bloodshot and feral. Much of his exposed skin was covered with bruises and crusted-over scrapes, and his right ankle was attached to the stone floor with an ancient, rust-pitted manacle. He was not the elegant creature that Yuusuke remembered anymore; he resembled a suffering animal caught in a trap, just minutes away from gnawing off his own leg.

"Yeesh! And I thought we had problems! Hold on while I crack you loose of that..." Kuwabara manifested his Rei Sword and reached for the chain, only to dodge a slashing blow from Kurama.

" _Don't touch me!_ " Kurama hissed, eyes flashing.

"Kurama, just how the hell are we supposed to free you if you won't let us come near you?" Yuusuke asked.

"I don't care. Just do it or go away." Kurama whimpered in despair.

"Rom, you got any ideas?" Kuwabara asked.

"Nope, short of holding him down while you use that sword of yours-"

There was an angry hiss from the fox.

"-but I don't think that would be a good thing." Rom finished, wincing at the look Kurama was giving him.

Yuusuke was about to suggest that he do it anyway when he was nearly bowled over by a powerful sense of sympathy, compassion, and reassurance from Beni, who was projecting those feelings at Kurama like an amplifier on full volume. _:We are friends, friends, friends, we will not hurt you,: Beni told him. :We will protect you, heal you, we will give freely of food and water, shelter you against those who seek your life. We will clean you, comb your fur free of tangles, offer you friendship, partnership. Be calm, do not fear. We are your friends. Rom, get that obscene thing off of his ankle.:_

Kurama was so bemused by the flood of warm emotions that he barely twitched when Rom snapped the brittle iron cuff in two. "Can you walk, little brother?" Rom murmured, unwilling to upset the fox by helping him up.

Kurama blinked and attempted to get upright, using the wall at his back for support. It didn't work. His legs failed him after the first step, sending him face-first into Yuusuke's front. Kurama hissed like a steam explosion and jerked back violently, sliding into an ungraceful heap on the floor. "Total blowout." Yuusuke muttered to himself. "Beni, if you would-"

Beni was way ahead of him. _:Sleep,:_ he commanded, and Kurama did.

Rom lifted the Kitsune off of the floor and turned to leave, motioning the others to follow him. "Back home we go, guys. We've enough to feed all of us anyway."

They travelled in silence for some time before Yuusuke decided to get a question off of his mind. _:Hey, Rom? Why'd you call him your little brother? You two aren't related, are you?:_

Rom snorted with amusement and shook his head. _:Not really, but close enough to count for something. Foxes are stuck somewhere between cat and dog; as Kuwabara can tell you, I'm mostly cat. Besides, I'm bigger than Kurama is.:_

 _:By the way, Beni,:_ Rom added privately to the smallest member of their group, _:Just which piece is this one?:_

 _:Twiceborn.:_ Beni replied promptly.

 _:You know, that makes about as much sense as the names the other ones have- exactly zap-squee.:_

 _:I know. Wait. Revelation will come later.:_

 _:Beni, you are entirely too mysterious for your own good sometimes.:_

 _:Yes.:_

ooooo

Kurama must not have gotten much sleep in that alcove, for he did not so much as bat an eyelash when Rom laid him out in the hollow they used for sleeping; instead, he curled up with a sigh and began to snore very softly. Beni was not content to leave him alone, however. Several of Kurama's scrapes had gone red and nasty, and a few leaked blood and pus from where they had torn open when he had made his attempt to get up. Yuusuke and Kuwabara crowded close to watch as Beni used his healing talent; they'd never seen it for themselves. Under those small white hands, the swellings subsided and returned to a more natural color, torn skin closed up without a trace and bruises vanished completely. Kurama was still thin, tangled and dirty when Beni was done, but on the whole, he looked a lot better. As for Beni, he wandered back over to Rom, crawled up into his arms and passed out cold.

Kuwabara watched this rather mournfully. When Yuusuke asked him what was wrong, Kuwabara started to sniffle. "Yukina has healing powers too. Gods, I wish she was here. Oh, hell, what am I talking about?! She'd hate this place. I wish I was where she is!" He burst into tears.

Rom and Yuusuke did their best to comfort him, but with little success. "A girlfriend, I take it?" Rom asked.

"Yeah." Yuusuke answered. "And she likes him too, I think."

ooooo

Kurama came out of his deep sleep with a bad case of the horrors. He didn't know where he was, he wasn't too sure who or what he was at the moment, and he wasn't alone; something warm was pressing up against his back. He scrambled away from that pressure with a snarl, ready to do mayhem if it tried anything funny. All he got, however, was a sleepy, disgruntled glare from a pair of slit-pupilled grey eyes and an irritated growl. Beni and Kurama traded wary stares for a few minutes, until Beni lost his patience with the paranoid fox and went to get a drink from the pool. Kurama watched him splash about a bit, and then took a good look at his surroundings. He was in a large, fairly well-lit room with its own private waterfall, ghost creepers growing thickly on the walls, piles of simple tools and other debris here and there, and a thin layer of orange cat hair all over everything. Other than the little pale one, Kurama was alone. His rescue hadn't been a dream, and that knowledge comforted him greatly. What's more, he didn't ache anywhere. Hunger and thirst were a different matter entirely, so he moved over to the pool for a drink, keeping a wary eye on his companion. Beni ignored Kurama's suspicion completely by walking over to the ghost creepers in search of ripe fruit, leaving the Kitsune plenty of room. Kurama turned and drank deeply of the icy liquid, and then looked at his reflection in the water. Yech. He needed a bath, and badly- the mats in his hair alone would take hours to get out, and how thin he had grown! He was almost glad that Hiei was not here to see him like this... Tears trickled forlornly down his face as he wondered whether or not Hiei was alive at all. Would he ever see that ruby-eyed, elfin little face again, so beautiful in its sternness? Would he ever feel the taut strength of Hiei's wiry body, witness the sleek grace of his movements? How Kurama missed him! Even if Hiei turned up somewhere along the line, could Kurama bear even his touch? Kurama shuddered. Ever since those perverted, half-mad demons had chained him in that alcove, his skin seemed to cry out in horror at the touch of another.

Something prodded his elbow. Kurama leaped aside with a sharp snarl, aiming a slashing blow with his long, sharp nails at whoever had disturbed him. He missed, arm swinging wildly through the air, overbalancing him badly and sending him sprawling. Beni watched him righting himself for a few moments, and then offered him a fruit. Kurama hesitated before taking it; usually he had to pay for his meals...

 _:Take it and eat.:_ Beni told him. _:You have already collapsed on us once; any more would be embarrassing for all. Yuusuke, Kuwabara, and Rom will bring us meat soon.:_

Kurama blinked, but took the fruit, biting deep into the tangy flesh. Beni passed him a handful of mushrooms once he had finished it, and a leftover roast cricket after that.

 _:We will make no demands of you that you are unwilling to give.:_ Beni continued, handing Kurama another cricket. _:Yuusuke and Kuwabara are your friends, Rom is too big, and I... I cannot. You are safe here.:_

Kurama almost choked on his cricket. "Y-you know what happened to me?"

 _:Your very being screams of it. I do not understand it, but you have been hurt inside somewhere, and you fear the intimacy of strangers greatly. Be calm. Healing will come later.:_

"Are you a seer or something?" Kurama asked.

Beni thought about this for a moment. _:Later makes shadows on Now. Sometimes the important parts of Later cast sharp shadows. These can be sensed and acted upon.:_

Before Kurama could ask any more questions, the doorstone ground noisily aside and Yuusuke and the others struggled through the passage with a massive spidercrab. Their return might have been more impressive if the crab hadn't got stuck halfway through.

"Oh, goddamnit, the stupid thing's jammed." Kuwabara grunted, hauling on a fighting claw. "Rom, give it a real shove, will you?"

"If I did, I'd squish Yuusuke." Rom replied. "I don't think he'd like that."

"Damn straight!" Yuusuke chimed in from somewhere underneath the giant crustacean. "Plus, I've gotta keep a grip on these little ones... OW! Dammit, the little bastards pinch! Just cut off a few chunks, Kuwabara."

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Kuwabara said, firing up his Rei Sword and hacking at various legs and claws.

"Don't make me answer that." Yuusuke growled, climbing through the gap that Kuwabara had made, sucking on a sore knuckle.

Kurama tried to focus on what Yuusuke was carrying; it turned out to be a tightly-woven gourd-shaped basket full of dozens of spidercrabs, each one no bigger than a golf ball. Though small, the little beasts were as vicious as the adult crabs, reaching through the gaps of the weave and snapping at Yuusuke's hands with their fighting claws. Yuusuke put the basket down near the firepit with some relief and went to help the others haul the big one through the entry passage. Kurama ventured over to peer at the basket's contents hungrily. He had caught one a bit bigger than these before by playing dead. Even raw, they were well worth wrestling out of the shell.

"Don't even think about setting them loose, Kurama!" Kuwabara called to him. "They're a pain in the butt to catch!"

"Literally." Rom chuckled, shoving the now-mangled carcass out of the way and rolling the doorstone back into position. "Three of 'em ran up his pant legs. He shan't be sitting comfortably for a while, let me tell you!"

"Oh, shut up!" Kuwabara grumped.

"At least we got them out before they grabbed anything essential." Yuusuke said as Kurama dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"You're no help." Kuwabara glowered at the fox-spirit. "Hell with it. Hey, Beni, stoke up a cookfire, will you?"

The banging of flints echoed around the room as the Rom and Kuwabara prepared the big spidercrab for cooking, and Yuusuke began to dispatch the smaller ones by banging them one at a time with a rock. "So, how've you been?" He asked Kurama between sharp cracks of breaking chitin. "Other than being forced into prostitution, I mean."

Kurama hesitated to answer. How to describe the endless hours of abuse, pain, loneliness, hunger, and despair? "Awful." He said at last.

Yuusuke gave him a sympathetic look. "If it makes you feel any better, I almost died from mushroom poisoning and Kuwabara was blind before we found him. Didn't stop him from killing a big crab by mistake."

A manic giggle clawed its way up Kurama's throat. "Only Kuwabara could do that. Hiei... Hiei would say that the crab should've gotten him instead, it would keep him away from Yukina." His fit of giggles trailed off into tears. "Oh, sweet Inari... D-did you know that- that right after one of those bastards had had his way with me, a thing made of shadows tore his soul out right in front of me, and then a big crab came to finish off the corpse? I almost called the shadow-thing back, so it could take me too. But I didn't want anything that had- had found that pervert tasty to lay its fangs on me; it would be contaminated you see, and Hiei would be so disappointed, and, and, and..." Kurama couldn't speak any more; his throat had closed with tears.

Yuusuke reached out to his friend, but was repelled by the look he got from those bloodshot eyes. He sat back and started whacking crabs again. "After we eat, I'll ask Rom and Beni if they'll take us to Deep Springs for a hot bath. I think it'll make us all feel better."

A fizzling noise and a feeling of frustration interrupted their conversation; the fire refused to light. Beni gave Rom a look of entreaty and tossed the worn flints away. Rom smiled indulgently and put down his bunch of crab legs. "Be right there." He said, coming to the firepit.

Bending down so his chin nearly touched the firewood, he blew gently through the circle of his thumb and forefinger. To nearly everyone's surprise, a small tongue of flame licked out and set the dried vines ablaze.

"Hey!" Kuwabara cried, "I didn't know you had fire magic!"

"I almost don't." Rom shrugged. "I used to know all sorts of pyrotechnics, but Kyaku stripped me of just about everything before throwing me down here. Playing firelighter is the best I can muster these days. Hey, what's with Yuusuke?"

Yuusuke had forgotten about his basket of crablings entirely and was staring fixedly at his finger. Something about Rom's little trick had knocked another fragment of memory loose, the memory of a very small child floating in the air around him, explaining something very important. _"...Concentrate on your finger..."_ The child had said, and he did so now without hardly thinking about it at all. It seemed... automatic for some reason. His fingernail started to glow with an ethereal blue light, pulsing brighter every second. Kuwabara knew exactly what that meant. "Hit the dirt!" he shouted and dove for the floor, the others not far behind him.

A blast of wild, uncontrolled power suddenly leaped from Yuusuke's hand, lighting the cave to an eye-blinding brilliance and scorching a perfect chrysanthemum on the stone of the ceiling. In protest, the ghost creeper vines unloaded their entire supply of fruit; ripe, underripe, and overripe all at once.

For a few minutes, there was stunned silence in the home cavern.

"Oh," Yuusuke said, suddenly tired, "so _that's_ what it's for."

"I see you've remembered your Rei Gun," Kuwabara growled, brushing fruit yuk off of his shirt.

"But not your control over it." Kurama added sourly.

Rom and Beni were even less impressed, the little albino hissing with annoyance and rubbing his eyes. "Yuusuke," Rom said in a rather strained voice, "if you ever set that thing off in the home cavern again, I will personally rip off your butt and pour salt in the hole. Understand?"

"Yessir!" Yuusuke said. That blast had nearly made him wet his pants- threats of massive bodily harm were unnecessary.

Kurama found his dinner to be the best he'd ever had; in fact, he ate so much that he was nearly sick and had to be carried down to Deep Springs. There was something of an argument about this, but he wound up riding down for a bath on Rom's broad back. Even the paranoid fox had to admit that it's very hard to molest someone when you're bent over backwards.

The others let him have a pool all to himself while they pulled mats out of Rom's fur. Kurama sank up to his ears and watched them, letting the knots in both his nerves and his own matted hair unravel. It was so hard to relax after all that had happened to him, so hard to endure the touch of anything, even his own flesh. He wished that he could shuck off his soiled body and exchange it for a new one, one that was as untouched as the snow on the very tops of the highest mountains. Well, he could start by getting the dirt off, at least. The water clouded with it as he scrubbed himself down, turning a most unappetizing shade of brown. _:Off with it! Off with the layers of abuse and misery, off with the despair and pain!:_ Kurama thought to himself ferociously, ducking under the water and running his fingers through his hair. They jammed, however, snared in the masses of felted hairs. _:They... They don't want to come off...:_ Kurama felt hysteria rising in his chest again and burst out of the water coughing from the mouthful he'd swallowed by accident, jerking painfully at the mats until a blast of calming emotions laid him shaking against the smooth wall of the pool.

A small, bony hand brushed across his face, stroking behind one twitching fox-ear. _:I sense distress in you.:_ A voice whispered gently in his mind. _:What you suffered is done and gone. I will help you untangle your hair.:_

Kurama jerked away with a shudder. "Don't touch me!" He said in a harsh whisper.

 _:If it helps, you may pretend that I am the one you lost.:_ Beni continued, undaunted by Kurama's hostility.

Kurama gave a sob and hunched over the pain in his heart. "Hiei. I wish I knew where he was, if he still lives. You know this hell-hole! Could he still be alive?"

:I do not know this Hiei.: Beni said, doubt shading his tone. :I do not know what to seek for.:

Kurama whipped around to face Beni, who was lying on his belly on the rim of the pool. "Then see him through me!" He hissed. "Go on, I know you can read minds! You wouldn't be able to speak to me if you couldn't. Look inside me and see him!"

The cat-eyed albino blinked at Kurama's vehemence, but complied while Kurama thought about Hiei as hard as he could. Kurama gasped as Beni made his entrance; it was like having a beam of desert sunlight flicking over his mind, picking out the smallest details, lingering over the most subtle of emotions. And then it _reached_...

 _:A plumber's nightmare no a badger's warren no a spelunker's wet dream tunnels after tunnels after tunnels all weaving together intertwining interconnecting like a bowl of noodles all linked together actually it feels like a spider's nest set in stone with lives like little stars like dewdrops at dawn strung along the threads there are killers in the web of course there is a killer in every web is there not of course there is where is that one drop of life among so many so very many... Ah.:_

"Well?!" Kurama demanded.

 _:He lives. If we are fortunate, he may still be alive when we find him. Now hold still.:_

Kurama was torn between joy and terror, and never even noticed Beni as he carefully picked the tangles out of his long, silver hair.

ooooo

Tormented by the chance that his lover might not be alive to see him again, Kurama began to frazzle out at the brain. He was unable to sleep well, and his mood swings tended to swing pretty wildly at the most improper of times. Hunting crickets and fish, for example; Beni had nearly tickled a really good-looking fish into his grasp when Kurama, in a fit of impatience, had decided to pounce. The fish got away, of course, and both fox and fisherman had wound up in the water.

Kurama had also gotten suicidal while going after spidercrabs. They did manage to score a really big one, but not without a great deal of trouble; Beni had to replace quite a large chunk of Kuwabara's right leg.

In the end, Yuusuke and the others settled for leaving Kurama in the home cavern to pick ghost creeper fruits while they did the dangerous work. It wasn't until a really spectacular personality failure henceforth known as the Incident With The Vines that Yuusuke asked Beni to make Kurama go to sleep while they were out.

ooooo

"You sure he's ready for this?" Kuwabara murmured to Yuusuke as they prepared to go hunting for baby spidercrabs.

"Ready or not, he's coming." Yuusuke replied. "He's been getting better, but he sulks when we go out without him."

"Just so long as he doesn't freak out like he did last time."

The subject of their discussion stood a little apart, holding a couple of baskets. Kurama gleamed like frozen moonlight in the soft illumination of the ghost creepers, topaz eyes glinting and long tail flicking around his knees.

"Probably the prettiest illustration of cabin fever I've ever seen." Rom told them in an amused tone as he got a good grip on the doorstone. "C'mon, let's get gone before the fox explodes."

ooooo

Aside from the harmless loony they encountered on their way to the crab tunnels (the guy insisted that he was a ghost and kept trying to walk through walls and failing), the trip was uneventful. There must have been a recent hatching, for the floor near the brine pits was nearly hidden beneath a moving carpet of crablings ranging from quarter-sized to crabs a palm's-width across. After very carefully checking that no adult crabs were in the neighborhood, our heroes began filling their baskets. It was a task that required nimble fingers; the crablings loved to grab things and hold on tight, and fingers were no exception. Kuwabara spotted an alternative to this after prying one off of his knuckles. _:Hey, Kurama? You've got crabs all over your tail.:_

 _:What?!:_ Kurama looked behind him and found that he was indeed carrying quite a few passengers.

 _:Oh, hey, cool!:_ Yuusuke said, hurrying over with an empty basket. _:You've got at least a couple of basket's worth on here. Hold still while I get 'em off.:_

 _:Make it quick!:_ Kurama growled, clutching the neck of his own basket until the vines crunched.

There is just something about long furry tails that attract small grabby things, be they kittens, crabs, or toddlers. Kurama eventually had three people de-crustaceaning his butt- Yuusuke, Kuwabara, and Beni, while Rom kept a lookout for trouble.

 _:Um, Guys?:_ Rom said eventually. _:I think we should go now.:_

 _:Hold on, we're almost done here,:_ Yuusuke said, pulling a really determined crabling out of a tear in Kurama's pant leg, _:Why? There a Bonewraith coming this way?:_

 _:It's worse than that.:_ Rom swallowed hard, backing away from the tunnel mouth he had been standing in.

 _:It isn't a Whisperer, is it?:_ Kuwabara said, looking up.

 _:Even worse than that!:_ Rom cried, leaping out of the way of something huge and dark. _:It's their Mama!:_

Rom wasn't kidding. A gigantic mature female spidercrab was forcing its way into the room, brandishing eight heavy fighting claws lined with razors and glaring at them with sixteen of the most evil ruby-red eyes they had ever seen. It came out of the side tunnel with a sharp sound of chitin grating on stone, paused a moment, and then rushed them with a hair-raising shriek of pure fury.

"Holy shit!" Kuwabara howled. "Run for it!"

Mama Crab wasn't about to let them get away so easily. She chased them three times around the brine pits snapping and slashing at every stride she took.

 _:Dammit!:_ Yuusuke panted. _:Is there any way out of here that's too narrow for that monster to follow?:_

Kurama pointed at a slim tunnel off to the left; the only way to get at it, however, was by going through a large, shallow brine pit. Well, better soaked than dead, so they made a sharp turn and ran for it. A heroic leap at the edge of the pit sent them straight into the middle of the slosh, where they found out that the brine was only a thin layer of salty water over a knee-deep quagmire of the most sticky, slimy, and smelly mud they had ever encountered. They didn't have time to complain about it- Mama Crab crashed right in after them with no hesitation at all. Yuusuke and the others made it into the tunnel in one frantic, sliding rush, almost jamming the entrance in their haste. It was fortunate indeed that they were all so well lubricated from the pit or they would never have gotten through it at all. Mama Crab slammed into the wall and bashed futiley at the narrow opening in a frenzied attempt to get at the escapees as they scrambled away from her; her frustrated shrilling followed them for miles.

ooooo

"That was (gasp) (wheeze) too close." Yuusuke said, sinking to the floor of the home cavern while Rom slammed the doorstone shut so hard it chipped.

"We did get lunch, though!" Kuwabara replied with a weak grin, holding up his muddy basket. "Is everyone here to help eat them? I'm starving."

"Lessee," Rom said, "There's you and Yuusuke, one formerly silver fox, here's me, and a smallish mudball that's either Beni or the funniest-looking crab in the universe."

The "funniest-looking crab in the universe" glared at him and gave him a raspberry.

"Sounds more like a giant Norkie to me." Kuwabara laughed.

 _:Not funny. *# ! pinhead.:_ Beni grumped and stalked over to the pool to wash off, making everybody chuckle.

Kurama set down his own basket and ran a hand over his hair, pulling away a glob of salt, mud, and squashed crab eggs. "Yech. This is going to take forever to clean out properly. Right after lunch, it's bathtime for us all."

"Hear, hear!" Yuusuke agreed, and then looked closely at Kurama's tail. "Hey, Kurama? You've still got some clinging to you. And some in your hair, too."

"Yeeech! Get 'em off!"

Kurama took a great deal of satisfaction from bashing the little monsters to death with a rock afterwards.

ooooo

Washing up in the cold pool got them halfway hygienic for the meal, but the salt mud had dried into a crystal-studded crust everywhere else. The smaller and less furry members of the group just had to deal with bits cracking off; Rom _clanked_ whenever he moved, and Kurama was little better off.

"Ever think of getting a buzz cut or something?" Kuwabara asked the big leonid. "All that fuzz looks like a pain to deal with."

Rom made a face. "I tried that once and nearly froze to death during a sudden cold snap. Never again! Besides, have you ever seen a bald lion? I look three times worse without all this fuzz."

"Right now, we all look like a geology class project gone wrong." Yuusuke cut in, bouncing an empty crab shell off of Rom's crusted shoulder with a faint clink. "I'm ready to go get clean. You?"

"Way ahead of you, kid." Rom told him and went to roll the doorstone aside.

They made the trip in record time, rattling dried mud and salt crystals all over the place on the way. Aah, hotsprings never looked so good! This time nobody objected when Rom did his customary headlong dive into the biggest pool; they followed him instead, except Kurama, who retired to one of the others. He wasn't quite ready to get that close to anyone yet. The hot, sulphurous water made short work of the mud and rather a lot of Rom's fur as usual. Where did that guy get it all? The more he lost, the more he had... Yuusuke, Kuwabara, and Beni were already covered with mats of dirty orange fur. It didn't take them long before someone started a furball fight that sent globs the size of tennis balls sailing every which way to splat against the walls. _:Hey, cool it, cool it!:_ Rom said when the giggling and splashing got too noisy. _:This is fun, but I'd rather not attract anything. One major upset a day is my limit.:_

The image of Mama Crab or something worse interrupting their bath was a sobering one, and they decided that getting clean quickly was better than another quick and not-so-clean getaway.

They very nearly weren't quick enough. The group had only taken a few steps out of the hotspring room when a voice that was so soft that it almost wasn't there whispered, _"...Yuusuke..."_.

Yuusuke stopped dead in his tracks, looking around wildly.

 _"...Yuusuke..."_

The shadows dimly cast by the light of the ghost creeper blooms began to rise into the air, coalescing into a vague figure.

"Whisperer!" Rom harshed. "Run!"

 _:This way!:_ Beni snapped, darting down a side passage, the Whisperer following them as they ran after him.

The thing just wouldn't let up. No matter how they dodged and backtracked, it was still a few steps behind them, calling their names hungrily. Gasping for breath, they burst into a large room where at least a dozen other cavern-dwellers were. Ignoring the startled looks that the inhabitants gave them, our heroes paused a moment to look for another way out. "Over there!" Kurama hissed.

A dark mouth of a tunnel presented itself invitingly, and Kurama and the others ran for it just as the Whisperer arrived. The utter chaos that ensued probably was the only thing that let them get away.

"What... What was that you said about major upsets?" Kuwabara wheezed, leaning on one wall and trying to get his breath back.

 _:Shhh!:_ Rom frantically motioned him to be silent. _:I said that one a day was enough. Two is suicide. Three is pushing fate, man, so shut up!:_

Yuusuke rubbed sweat out of his eyes and took a deep breath. _:You both shut up. Look, let's get back to the home cavern already. I'm gonna have nightmares about this for weeks...:_

An excellent idea, but not as easy as it sounded. Their mad dash had put them on an extremely roundabout route home, but nobody complained. So long as it took them away from the Whisperer, that was just fine. About halfway through the labyrinth, Kurama's ears perked up. _:Do you hear that?:_

Everyone paused to listen. Clearly but echoingly distant, someone was singing.

 _:I've heard that song before somewhere,:_ Yuusuke said, _:and that voice sounds familiar, too.:_

Kuwabara snorted. _:That's "Eye to Eye". Great song, but it took hours to convince Hiei that he could help sing it without killing me. He only did it anyway 'cause Kurama agreed to sing too... Um. Kurama? Does anyone in the Makai know that song?:_

Kurama, Yuusuke, and Kuwabara stared at each other for a moment, the same notion on their minds. In one smooth movement, Kurama whisked around, grabbed Beni off of Rom's back and held him up to eye level. _:I know you can track minds through this maze,:_ Kurama growled mentally, _:I know that you can recognize Hiei through my memories of him. Is that him singing?:_

Beni struggled a bit in Kurama's grip, but complied when he saw the look in the Kitsune's eyes. _:Yes.:_ Beni answered. _:He sings over there, but he is a mess. There is a vampire near him.:_

Kurama's eyes widened in horror, and he gave Beni a violent shake. _:Take me to him right now!:_

 _:I can not.:_

 _:And why is that?!:_

 _:Because you are dangling me three feet above the ground, is why. Put me down and I will guide you wherever you like.:_

Kurama gave the cat-eyed albino a glare that would have slagged glass and dropped him with a thump. Beni picked himself up, rubbed at the new bruises on his backside, and motioned them towards a near-invisible side passage. _:That way, stupid fox.:_

 _:Here I come, stupid cat.:_ Kurama replied easily.

The passage wasn't long, but it twisted like a length of snake's gut; all full of painful angles. Rom lost a certain amount of fur in the narrower parts and Kurama almost broke his ankle where a trickle of water had turned a gentle slope into a mudslide. All the time the singing got closer, nearer, drawing them on, and then stopped when they entered a long gallery strewn with patches of mushrooms. The ghost creepers grew thinly here, and much of the gallery was cloaked in deep shadow. Once again the singing started up, sounding like it came from the far end of the room.

 _:That's him!:_ Kurama said, and rushed to find the singer.

Not long after his rush, he tripped over something lying half-hidden in a patch of very suspicious-looking mushrooms, something that yipped in surprise. Kurama hauled himself back upright and turned to see what had tripped him up. "Hiei!" He breathed.

Yuusuke and the others gathered around to have a look at their newly found teammate. It was Hiei, all right, lying on his back in the midst of some rather squidged fungus with all three eyes open. None of those eyes were focussing properly, and a rather silly smile had smeared itself over his face like a bad watercolor. Kuwabara scowled at the shadows surrounding him. _:Okay, we've found the runty little monster. Wasn't there supposed to be a vampire around here?:_

Rom pointed to a spot a few yards away; there was a cloud of damp mist, vaguely human-shaped, hovering uncertainly by a stalagmite. _:Music Gaki. Harmless, but a vampire anyway. Shoo! Git, you foggy-bottomed spook!:_

The Gaki gave a unhappy little noise and drifted away.

Kuwabara turned his attention back to Hiei, who was starting to croon again. _:So, what's with him? I haven't seen anything like this since he got into a liquor store and downed a whole bottle of sake.:_

 _:Looks like the other kind of wrong mushrooms,:_ Yuusuke replied, _:the little guy's stoned out of his gourd.:_

 _:Just great.:_ Kuwabara muttered, then waved a hand in front of Hiei's nose. _:Hey, shorty, you still coherent?:_

With some difficulty, Hiei managed to focus on Kuwabara. "Why, hello, Mister Broccoli!" He murmured.

Kuwabara blinked. _:Broccoli?!:_

Yuusuke had to stifle a giggle. _:I keep telling you to change that hairstyle.:_

Kuwabara ran his fingers through his hair and glared at Yuusuke. _:I happen to like it how it is.:_

 _:Even if it looks like broccoli.:_ Kurama chortled.

"Furglenarf the brockles!" Hiei burbled. "There's a woggle on the abacus, so the beans can't crunch the numbers. Golganoth is halfway to peanuts, so sez the flying rhino. Pickle-pickle-pickle."

Kuwabara decided to have a little fun, so he offered a few random words to see what would happen. _:Fish, insecticide, blither, dictionary.:_

Hiei chortled. "Fishies flatten bugs with words. I like this game, Mister Broccoli! Wherin the wherefore of the whatsit clammed I, with a pair of tongs and a... a... a..." Hiei screwed his face up in concentration and looked at Rom. For a moment, a few neurons fired in the right patterns. "Just what does 'Haschera'a' mean, anyway?"

Rom raised an eyebrow. _:I think we might both know the same person. 'Haschera'a' means, loosely translated, 'Up yours'.:_

"Thanks, it's been driving me months for crazy."

 _:Stop teasing him, Kuwabara, you know he's going to hit you when he sobers up.:_ Yuusuke said, pulling Hiei into a sitting position. _:Hey, Kurama, you want to carry him or should I? I don't think he'll be able to walk like this.:_

"Kurama?" Hiei said, sitting up straight. "Where's my fox? I want my fox with all white fuzzy fuzz and a great big- aha! Kurama, I have you now!" With that, he sprang into Kurama's arms and wrapped his own firmly around his neck.

Kurama still wasn't ready for contact this close and let out an ear-piercing shriek. This startled Hiei badly and he responded by clinging even tighter to Kurama's front and uttering a howl that brought down stalactites a mile away. Rom sprang forward and clamped his hands around both their mouths. _:Shut up! You've probably alerted every predator in the system! We have to get out of here right now.:_

 _:Too late.:_ Yuusuke moaned.

 _"...Yuusuke..."_ Something horribly familiar whispered.

 _"...Romfelemars..."_

 _"...Kurama..."_

 _"...Hiei..."_

 _"...Beni..."_

 _"...Kuwabara..."_

There were three of them. Coalescing out of the shadows they came, each one covering the few escape routes, not even bothering to hide their presence. The hungry anticipation of the Whisperers was almost palpable.

"Spookles!" Hiei piped up. "Here are the spookles, but no bony things to munch on them? Heeeeereee bony thingies, bony thingies, bony thingies!"

"That's it!" Rom said, not bothering with their mental connection. "Make noise! If we're lucky, we can attract a 'Wraith or two!"

"Cool!" Kuwabara said and manifested his Rei Sword with a flourish. "Come and get it, you soul-sucking monsters!"

Beni sounded a shrilling whistle that made the ears ache, and Rom roared like a foghorn in serious trouble. Kurama and Hiei made a nerve-jangling duet, and Yuusuke decided to let loose with a Rei Gun blast. The Whisperers swirled nervously in all the noise and flash, but the spirit weapons made no impression on them whatsoever. Yuusuke and the others represented a rich feast for the evil miasmas, and no way was a little noise and a few flashes of light going to scare them off.

One of them slid forward and caught Yuusuke by the throat. Rom's fist swished through the shadow creature in an attempt to make it let go, but to no effect. The Whisperer reached into Yuusuke's chest, and the boy gave a choking cry as the fist of death clasped at his heart.

That was when the Bonewraithes arrived. There was no telling just how many of the skeletal hunters there were, but the air was suddenly filled with clattering wings and the booming roars of frightened Whisperers. The one holding Yuusuke dropped its prey and streaked away, right into the waiting talons of a 'Wraith. Our heroes shared a significant look and then bolted down an exit tunnel and did not stop running until they'd reached the home cavern.

"Wh... What was that you said about three major upsets in one day?" Kuwabara wheezed, sliding to the floor.

Rom made triply sure the doorstone was shut firmly behind them. "Just shut up already. You okay, Yuusuke?"

Yuusuke rubbed at his breastbone and shivered. "I'm fine. Damn, but that thing had cold hands! Is everybody here?"

"Yo." Rom replied.

"Present." Kuwabara said.

"Right here." Kurama added.

 _:Here:_ Beni said.

"Cumberbund? Norkies! My hovercraft is full of eels and spam spam spam spammity spaaaam!"

"And Hiei's here too." Yuusuke finished up. "Physically, anyway."

"Is there any way to sober Hiei up?" Kurama asked; Hiei had started singing a very bawdy tavern ballad badly off key, and the noise was getting on his already frayed nerves.

Rom shrugged. "Short of waiting until it wears off? I suppose you could ask Beni. He's good at this sort of thing."

"...With a youkai if you fireproof your ass, but the hedgehog can never be buggered at all!" Hiei bawled.

"I think you'd better ask him." Kuwabara said, wincing.

Hiei lurched to his feet, wavered over to Rom, stuck his face into the big cat's belly fur and snorted loudly.

"Hey!" Rom yelped, leaping to his feet. "What was that all about?"

"Orange fuzz fix." Hiei giggled. "It really works!"

Kuwabara decided to have some more fun with the stoned firebaby. "Hey, Hiei, can I date Yukina?"

"Sure! Go right ahead, Mr. Broccoli!" Hiei replied, collapsing backwards into Kurama's lap. "Every guy needs a girlfriend," he gave Kurama an extremely suggestive leer, "and sometimes he needs a guyfriend, too... Kiss me, you beautiful fox, you. Ignite my toenails."

Ears slatted back and close to panic, Kurama slid out of Hiei's reach and looked around desperately for their resident healer, who was having a fit of giggles over by the cold pool. "Get that stuff out of his system!" Kurama hissed, grabbing Beni by the front of his shirt. "Right now!"

 _:A disappointment,:_ Beni complained, _:he is much more fun this way.:_

Kurama dunked him in the cold pool. There was a very damp explosion as Beni took great exception to the dunking, and what Kurama eventually hauled out and held at arm's length could best be described as a whirling blur of claws, fangs, and wet white fuzz that stuck out in all directions. "Now will you detox him? Kurama asked menacingly.

What Beni answered was wordless, but still purely unprintable. Kurama dunked him again.

It took some doing, but Beni was eventually convinced that detoxing Hiei's bloodstream was a better idea than being forced to learn how to breathe under water. Soggy wet and extremely disgusted with everything, he walked over to Hiei, who was trying to balance a rock on his nose, and laid a hand on the firebaby's shoulder. Hiei froze as Beni's eyes got that distant look that meant he was concentrating hard on something. As the others watched, a small puddle of yuk formed at their feet, and Hiei's eyes cleared and focussed. Beni backed away with a yawn and went to wring out his shirt. Hiei blinked and looked around, taking in his surroundings properly for the first time. "Oh," he said softly, "so you all lived."

"Yup!" Yuusuke agreed cheerfully. "Took some doing, but it worked. Feeling better?"

"Yes, I-" Hiei stopped, remembering just what he had done and said in the past fifteen minutes or so. "Kuwabara," he growled, "come here."

Curious, Kuwabara ambled over to the little fire demon, who backhanded him soundly into the cold pool. "Stay away from Yukina, you carrot-headed son of a bilge rat!" Hiei snarled. "Mr. Broccoli, indeed."

"Am I missing something here?" Rom asked, pulling a wheezing Kuwabara out of their drinking water.

"Nothing big." Yuusuke replied, despite Hiei's warning glare. "Kuwabara's just been trying to date Hiei's sister Yukina without Hiei killing him. You'll notice that it isn't working."

Rom glowered suspiciously at Hiei, who returned the look coolly. "I'll say. Little guy damn near snapped a rib or two here. This happen a lot?"

"All the time." Kurama sighed.

"So who are you?" Hiei asked Rom shortly.

"I'm Romfelemars. Rom for short, and the little pale kid who cleaned out your system is Beni."

Hiei nodded a greeting, examining the two strangers carefully. Rom reminded him powerfully of the Piper; they had the same basic body shape, but Rom was smaller and more massively built. Besides, the thought of Piper walking around with a fur coat was too ridiculous to ignore. As for the other one... Beni was watching him intently, the huge grey cat's eyes boring into him with a kind of gaze that he had seen only once before; he had seen it when his ultimate grandfather, the Fire-Lord Salxarxis, had truly seen him for the first time- and had known from that one glance exactly _who and what and why_ Hiei was. Hiei shuddered nervously and looked away. Beni gave him the creeps.

"So," Kuwabara said a bit breathlessly, "what're we going to do about dinner?"

They looked at the doorstone.

"I am not going back out there." Kurama said flatly.

"I'll second that." Yuusuke agreed.

"We might want to lie low for a good while, anyway," Rom added, "I've got a feeling that we upset a lot of critters out there."

 _:Definitely not to go out.:_ Beni said, squinting as he had a mental look at the other side of the doorstone. _:Bonewraiths have gone all feeding-mad, they will bite anything now. Food is here, anyway. Fruit, crickets, mushrooms, some dried crab.:_

Hiei made a face. "Not more mushrooms."

Yuusuke chuckled. "I know how you feel, man. C'mon, let's see what there is..."

ooooo

The meal was a bit sparse and unsatisfying, but it was better than nothing, and they were all too exhausted from their adventures to complain. Once they were finished eating, they curled up together in the sleeping hollow (letting Rom settle in first so they could use him for a pillow), and all but Hiei passed out cold immediately. Hiei was a little disturbed with the way things were going; something was wrong with Kurama. Hiei had fully intended to cuddle up next to his fox like he was accustomed to doing, but Kurama had quivered and shrunk away, a weird, frightened look in his eyes. Something very bad had happened, and Hiei did not know even how to approach a method of making it better. One thing was for sure; if he ever caught whoever was responsible for this, he would spend many, many days making that person suffer.

ooooo

"So, fellow mighty hunters, what shall we stalk today?" Yuusuke said.

"What else is there?" Kuwabara grumped, stretching.

"More godsdamn crab." Kurama sighed resignedly. "What I wouldn't give for a bowl of pickled seaweed and a cup of tea..."

Rom whimpered. "Don't talk about such things, you'll make me drool. Maybe Beni can swipe us up some fish while we hunt. Should we wake Hiei up?"

They all looked at the newest member of the team. Hiei had rolled into the warm spot that Rom had left when he'd gotten up and lay curled in on himself like a kitten, almost angelic in repose.

"Let him sleep." Kurama said, smiling faintly. "He very seldom gets breakfast in bed. We'll just have to remember to get a really big crab."

"That goes without saying, considering our numbers," Rom grunted as he rolled aside the doorstone, "Now let's get rolling."

It didn't take as long to get breakfast as usual; the crabs, especially the big ones, were out and about cleaning up the mess that Yuusuke and the others had left in their wake the last time they were out. It helped that they were getting more skilled at taking the chitinous bastards down, too. This one had fallen easily; taken by surprise out of a side tunnel, with Rom and Yuusuke clutching its rear legs, Kurama tangling it up in mutant creepers, and Kuwabara planting his Rei Sword up to the hilt right between the beast's eyes. Quite cheerfully they brought it home, discussing what Hiei would think of a crustacean several times larger than him.

"Hey, little dude, breakfast!" Kuwabara said, hauling the crab through the doorway with some effort.

The magic word. Hiei popped awake, saw the crab of his wildest dreams, and reacted as he normally did. "Mine!" _*Crack*_ Munch munch munch mrf munch...

"Hey!" Rom yelped, trying to swat Hiei off and failing miserably. "You're supposed to cook it first, you know! At least leave us some."

He might as well have been talking to a brick wall; in fact, the brick wall might have paid him more attention than Hiei did. The firebaby sat back eventually with a burp. "Tasty."

"Oh, man, he cleaned out the legs and claws, too." Yuusuke complained.

"Did you expect anything different?" Kurama asked wryly.

"But where does it all go?" Rom said with some distress. "The crab was three times his size, even without the shell! There's no way it could all fit!"

"Think 'hummingbird', Rom." Kurama informed him. "Hiei's always been like that."

"I wouldn't know. What's a hummingbird?"

"A bird no bigger than one of your fingertips. They eat several times their weight every day."

"That," Rom growled, pointing at Hiei, "is no bird. We're going to have to go out for another crab, you know."

"Another crab." Hiei said thoughtfully. "That would be good."

"And you're coming to help catch it!" Rom snapped, picking Hiei up under the armpits and lifting him clear off the floor. "And you are going to help carry it back, even if you are knee-high to a crab louse! Let's go!"

Not bothering to hide their amusement, the others followed Rom and the furiously sputtering firebaby back out into Caverns Proper.

ooooo

 _:Is it still there?:_ Rom asked uneasily as he hefted his chunk of spidercrab.

 _:Yup.:_ Kuwabara replied, hacking at the carcass with his Rei Sword. _:I don't think she's going to leave, either.:_

The group stared suspiciously at the creature that watched them, unwilling to take their eyes off of it for a minute, even though it had made no move toward them. It was a Bonewraith, and an older one to judge by the healed scars and fractures on its bones, and it had been following them on their hunting forays ever since their near-disastrous rescue of Hiei. Not out of any hope of sharing their kills, of course. Just keeping Hiei's voracious appetite sated, not to mention their own, was far too big a job to pass out free tidbits to a fully competent predator. Oddly enough, the 'wraith never even attempted to filch from them; it seemed to be more curious than hungry, and would simply sit and stare at them with empty, backlit eyesockets. _:What is that monster waiting for, anyway?:_ Hiei demanded. _:It should have either attacked or lost interest by now.:_

Kurama watched the 'wraith thoughtfully as it pared off an old claw sheath with its fangs. _:Maybe it remembers the ruckus we caused and is hoping for another Whisperer?:_

 _:Might be.:_ Yuusuke chuckled. _:Admit it, guys. We've never managed to not attract trouble.:_

 _:At least this one is keeping a polite distance.:_ Rom grumbled.

The Bonewraith yawned somewhat melodramatically, showing off its magnificent dental work, and stretched its oddly-constructed wings until the struts trembled. Then it launched itself straight at Kurama's face. Kurama's legs threw him to the floor before his brain had a chance to register what had happened, leaving the 'wraith plenty of room to plow straight into one of the Caverns' lesser predators- a sort of vampire that closely resembled a creeper-entangled mess of disjointed bones; it had been reaching stealthily for Kurama's neck. The Bonewraith dug right into its meal without bothering to check if it was dead, making appreciative grumbling crunchy noises as it devoured its squealing prey.

 _:You were saying?:_ Yuusuke asked wryly.

Rom rolled his eyes with a disgusted sigh and helped a rather shaken Kurama up.

 _:Funny, though,:_ Kuwabara said, watching the 'wraith, _:She's not as big as she looks. She's only about as big as Shorty here.:_

Hiei gave Kuwabara a poisonous glare. _:I will choose to believe you were talking about Beni.:_

Kuwabara ignored him. "I think I'll call her Thera." He said aloud and hunkered down near the newly-named Bonewraith. "You're a good girl, aren't you?"

Thera hissed at him and resumed her lunch.

Everybody decided to leave her to it, picked up their dinner, and returned to the home cavern without further incident. During the meal they found out that the crab had been carrying a load of eggs inside its heavy carapace; while delicious, they were a bit gooey and got sticky gunk all over everything.

"Bathtime." Yuusuke said, brushing at the goo on his shirt.

"Yick!" Kuwabara agreed. "Last one in the hotspring is cricket-bait."

"We could use some more crickets anyway." Hiei commented as he munched on the last one. "Thank you for volunteering."

"Why, you little-" Kuwabara growled.

Rom swatted him sharply on the bridge of the nose. "Not near the fire, Kuwabara. Short-and-surly here may be fireproof, but you aren't. I'm not going to put you out again."

Kuwabara clutched at his bruised honker and sulked, but didn't bother to argue. Being set alight was no fun at all.

ooooo

Thera joined them again soon after they'd started on the journey to the hotsprings, always keeping her distance, never losing their trail. Occasionally she would swoop down side passages, only to rejoin them a few minutes later. _:I give up.:_ Rom thought grouchily. _:Beni, can you find out whatever is on that thing's mind?:_

 _:She hunts. The huntress hunting the hunters that hunt still other hunters... We seem to attract things to fill her belly.:_ Beni replied laconically.

 _:She doesn't have a belly to fill!:_ Yuusuke protested.

 _:Of course she does. Else she would not hunger. Her belly is simply not here.:_

 _:Then where the hell is it?!:_

Beni shrugged noncommittally. How was he to know?

The argument kept up until they reached the hotsprings, whereupon the discussion was given up in favor of hot water, into which Rom plunged headfirst, as usual. Yuusuke, Beni, and Kuwabara dove in right after him, leaving Kurama to wander over to the far pool to bathe alone as he usually did. Hiei settled into the center pool, watching his lover as he removed his tattered garments for washing. Hair the color of burnished moonbeams, skin like alabaster, eyes like finest citrine. Elegant, graceful, beautiful even after all that had happened. Even if he was still a bit thin. That was silly, of course, Hiei knew. None of them, not even that big cat-beast was carrying any spare flesh at all. But Kurama was still bleeding inside; he felt the hurt as if it were his own. Yuusuke had learned to ignore the gaping holes in his memory, Kuwabara had been cured of his blindness, Hiei's own mushroom-poisoned body had been cleansed, but Kurama was still bleeding inside. He did not like to be touched any more; he shrank from contact, feared it, was weakened by his fear, and the pain of it tore at Hiei's heart.

Kurama had settled into the seething water and was hunched up against the side of the pool, watching his reflection sadly. Hiei remembered the last time he himself had been in that sort of situation. The Koorime had messed with his head. He couldn't remember much of that time; only a feeling of cold and merciless fury, and of nearly slicing Kurama in two, he'd been just as weak and vulnerable when his ultimate grandfather had finished deprogramming him. Kurama had made love to him in a deep if narrow puddle of warm rainwater, and it had strengthened him immeasurably. Perhaps if he returned the favor...

Hiei glanced behind him. The others were too busy scraping gunk out of Rom's fur to notice anything. Good. Lithe as an otter, Hiei slid up and over into Kurama's pool without even disturbing the surface and paddled silently over to his lover. "Tell me what happened." He whispered into one silver fox ear.

Kurama didn't move, but he tensed up so that his body was stiff as a board. He remained silent for so long that Hiei wondered if he had forgotten how to speak, but then he began in a soft whisper. "We had separated when we came down here, and I was lost before we had taken a single step. So much darkness. Nothing growing save the ghost creepers, everything preying on everything else, preying in more ways then one... They caught me while I was asleep. I woke up chained to the floor in a tiny alcove and they..." His voice broke off in a sob. Hiei made soothing noises and rubbed his trembling back as Kurama told him about the unremitting abuse he had suffered, the beatings, the rape, the hunger when his captors had forgot to feed him or withheld food to make him more tractable. At the end of it, Hiei held his fox in his arms, seething with fury.

"They'll never touch you again." He murmured fiercely. "If they come within three miles of you again, I'll make them eat their own balls. Then I'll cut off their arms and legs and stake 'em out in a brine pit for the crabs to chew on. I'll always be here to protect you, Kurama, the same way you protected me. We both defend the people we love, don't we?"

Kurama looked up with tears streaming like rain from his amber eyes, desperately seeking Hiei's ruby ones for any trace of falsehood; he found none. Kurama turned to embrace his lover properly and rested his silver head on Hiei's tightly muscled shoulder. He felt himself hardening in spite of the tangled mess of emotions that threatened to overwhelm his bruised mind. "Oh, beloved," he moaned, "Teach me how to love again..."

Beni, who had occupied the central pool after Hiei had left it, watched their gentle lovemaking with a faint smile on his face. That singular, shining part of him that wore the rest of his being like a mask watched through his eyes, and rejoiced in the genesis that happened there. Watched as paper-white skin gained a rosy tint, as snowy hair turned blood-colored, as hard citrine eyes sublimated into deep-forest green. A cleansing, a renewal, a regeneration as sacred as the rituals once performed in honor of... But that was unimportant, belonging to the shadowy vaults of the past. What mattered was here, and marbled patterns of memory sleeted over Beni's mind as he looked on the rebirth of joy. _:Maybe kittens later.:_ He mused to himself, and then concentrated on getting himself clean.

ooooo

It was a week or so later. Kurama had calmed somewhat, but still wouldn't let anyone but Hiei touch him. Yuusuke's memory still resembled a checkerboard, and Kuwabara was getting seriously homesick. "I've had enough of this," he growled during a meal and flung a cricket across the room. "I want out of this hole."

"He's got a point." Yuusuke conceded, retrieving the cricket and munching on it thoughtfully. "We've found everybody we came in with, so shouldn't we go back out and finish the job?"

"You mean trying to kill Kyaku again?" Kurama made a face. "You're a real idiot sometimes, aren't you? I'll settle for just sneaking away this time."

"Sneaking is good." Hiei agreed. "You've been down here longer than we have, Rom. Do you know where the exit is?"

Rom snorted derisively. "Get serious. I'd just had most of my powers reamed right out when I came here. All I remember is a very powerful urge to dart down a hole and pull it in after me. You got any clues, Beni?"

Beni shrugged and pointed at the ceiling. _:Up.:_

"That's a big help." Kuwabara grumbled.

"It's the best bet we have, though." Yuusuke sighed. "We'll just have to explore the upper levels."

Rom grimaced uncomfortably. "We'd better hope that Thera hasn't gotten bored with us, then. You get Whisperers in groups on the upper levels. Why do you think our home cavern is solidly on the middle levels? Not even the barriers in the walls would keep that many out."

 _:I will ask her.:_ Beni said quietly, curling up for a nap. _:She loves to feel shadow-flesh bleeding in her fangs.:_

"Better them than us." Hiei said.

ooooo

Fortunately, Thera was as eager to go exploring as they were, once Beni had explained things to her. With a rattle of wingbones, she hopped onto Kuwabara's shoulder, fangs clicking eagerly. Kuwabara wasn't very happy with that. Bonewraith talons were very sharp, and Thera's grip was powerful. There was also something very unnerving about having a potentially lethal bite hovering around your left ear, but Thera refused to move from Kuwabara's shoulder. _:You're stuck with her, Kuwabara,:_ Rom told him, _:I'll make you a pad for her claws next time we go out.:_

That turned out to be a very good idea. Their first foray into the upper levels didn't get them much further than lost, and the Whisperers really did travel in flocks, although not for long. Every single time one or more of the creatures manifested, Thera would launch herself off of Kuwabara with such force that she left long, bleeding scratches all down his arm. Eventually the group made their way back to the home cavern, carrying the Bonewraith, who had glutted herself nearly into a coma.

ooooo

"Okay, let's try this one on for size." Rom said, putting the finishing touches on his project. It looked a bit like a cannibalized medieval mail shirt and arm guard that Rom wove out of ghost creeper vines and bits of spidercrab shell. "Hold still, Kuwabara."

"I don't see why I have to go through with this." Kuwabara growled as Rom helped him put it on.

"Yuusuke's shoulders aren't broad enough, my fur gets tangled up in her toes, Kurama still freaks out when anyone but Hiei touches him, and both he and Beni are too little." Rom replied matter-of-factly. "Besides, do you really want your arm torn to ribbons again? Okay, Thera, go for it."

Thera, who had been allowed to sleep off her meal in the cavern, hurled herself at Kuwabara and managed to land without knocking him over. Her claws made unpleasant grating sounds on the crabshell plates, but the armor held.

"Hey, this is much better!" Kuwabara said happily. "Now let's get moving."

They had slightly better luck this trip; after the first bad experience, the Whisperers did not turn up in such large numbers, a fact that rather disappointed Thera. Yuusuke picked up a jagged bit of rock and began marking the tunnels as they went, since getting lost was boring. They were able to explore several long galleries before Thera got too full to continue and draped herself, belching occasionally, over Kuwabara's shoulders and fell asleep. _:We may have to ask her to bring the rest of her flight along next time,:_ Kurama said thoughtfully, _:it only takes a few hours before she stuffs herself solid.:_

 _:Good idea.:_ Rom replied. _:I'll mention it to her when she comes to. How 'bout we go kill some dinner and catch some sleep?:_

Nobody objected to that notion. It had been a hard day, and they were all very tired of picking their way around tricky rock formations. An unwary spidercrab collected on the way home provided them with a fine meal, and they curled up around Rom's huge furry bulk for the night.

ooooo

 _Hiei hovered in formless nothing, swirling chaos in ever-streaming tapestries flaring from direfonts of oblivion. This was, of course, insupportable. So he poured the soothing darkness from his hands over it and the spill spread like oil on water, like smoke on air, like twilight over a planet, blocking out and blanking out the havoc around him._ Looks a bit like 'Quin's pants, _he thought. And then there was no chaos, and he waited for the others to arrive._

 _They were here, all eight of them. He saw Kurama, his heart's desire all of roses and shining leaves, poppies and posies and every flower imaginable. Hiei longed to be the shade cast by such morning glory, to be under his love forever._

 _He saw Yuusuke, all clouds and tricksy zephyrs, playful breezes; sudden lightning in his fingers, thoughts a-whirl in his mind. Dust-devil of a young man, insubstantial to the eye, yet with great power._

 _He saw Yukina, flowing water, sparkling ice. A strange and mesmeric beauty whose eyes promised rain. Life flowed though her, into her, past her, around her. It could never be without her._

 _He saw Kuwabara, rough-hewn of stone, finished in clay, shining dark agate in his eyes. Solid, stolid, deceptively slow, yet frightening violence lurked there. Rich dark earth. Swirling sand. Eternal mountain._

 _He saw Romfelemars in shimmering flame, blowing with it, bursting with it, flowing with it. Mercurial, unpredictable, often prankish, most often destructive, and yet the best friend one could ever have. Just looking at him made Hiei want to dance._

 _He saw Shiori, robed in mottled white, chased with living filigree of soft gold and hazy orange, crowned in purest silver. Her eyes were beauty, her smile poetry, and her fingers held a touch of madness and legend like a bauble._

 _He saw Beni come blazing from obscurity and symbolism, grey cat-eyes filled with wisdom. From dim oblivion with a half-heard word he came to become universal in his shining._

 _Hiei saw one last one come, formless and strongest of all. Lightning-fast, glacially-slow, forever counting._

 _In unspoken agreement, they looked down at the pool of darkness, at the tight knot of potential that bunched like an oak root, hidden until now by the chaos. Hiei and the rest reached out to touch each other and began to sing, sing their substance into the knot of potential, sing it into actuality. The knot untwisted, unraveled, spiralled out and bloomed under their influence, formed a bright-burning Hub that echoed their singing. Realities like spheres of morphic glass formed around it, five of them, polished and beautiful. The Artisans leaned in for a closer look._

"How pretty." _Shiori sighed, trailing her fingers across one sphere, making it swirl gorgeously._

"A Pentameral System," _Kuwabara observed, impressed with his handiwork,_ "Unusual."

"Unstable." _Hiei said, shaking his head._ "One of them is bound to collapse after a few Cycles, maybe two."

 _The others paused, thoughtful._

"It'll settle out to three in the end, of course; they generally do." _Romfelemars put in._ "Three's always been stable for some reason. It's a good Hub, though. Maybe it'll hang on to the pieces."

 _Yukina snorted at their lack of enthusiasm._ "Unstable or no, it will be an interesting job. Let's get busy."

 _Beni looked at Romfelemars and asked a question._ "I and my Brother have business elsewhere as usual. Will you look after this project for me?"

 _Rom gave him a reassuring smile._ "No problem. I expect a bunch of us'll hang around for a while. Just come back to visit us when you're done, okay?"

"Of course. He will return long before I do, naturally."

"We'll save him a world to play with."

 _Beni turned to Hiei with a fond smile and offered his hand._ "Shall we go then?"

 _Hiei nodded with one last longing look at Kurama, and took Beni's hand. Together, they headed for parts as yet unknown._

ooooo

Hiei woke up with a sudden start to find everyone else except Beni blinking groggily at each other. He stared at the tiny albino, who was still snoozing peacefully in Rom's belly fur. "Did you..." He began uncertainly.

"Just jump start our universe?" Yuusuke said, scratching one ear. "Yeah."

"Gods, what a weird feeling." Kuwabara grumbled. "And here I thought it was the Big Bang. Does this happen often?"

"Not really." Rom said, rubbing at an eye. "I've had to share this dream a few times before this. I'm always fire for some reason, but the other ones keep changing. Who were those two girls?"

"My sister and Kurama's mother." Hiei answered him.

"Ah."

They slept again, but did not dream of anything.

ooooo

 _:I don't care if it's a safety measure! Get them off of me!:_

 _:Oh, cool it, Kurama. It's not as if they're going to hurt you, and Kuwabara can't carry them all.:_ Rom said exasperatedly.

Kurama stood with his back flat to the tunnel wall, plucking fledgling Bonewraiths out of the remains of his shirt. At Rom's suggestion, Thera had invited the rest of her family along on this trip to the upper levels. Her family consisted of two other adults and at least eight small, chirpy youngsters, all of whom thought that Kurama was nifty. Kurama gave Rom a dirty look and deposited a few squawking fledglings in his mane. _:This had better be worth it.:_

 _:It should be,:_ Yuusuke said, steadying one of the adults on his shoulder, _:we might even make some progress today. Beni says that these little guys can eat twice their weight in spooks in one sitting.:_

 _:Anyone know how much a Whisperer weighs?:_ Kuwabara asked jokingly, pulling a fledgling out of Kurama's hair and tucking it into his pocket.

 _:About the same as an idea.:_ Beni said, making Kuwabara look at him suspiciously.

Hiei gave a snort of amusement. _:Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Now let's get out of this pit.:_

This time, the Whisperers seemed to have taken the hint; aside from a few large and optimistic groups, our heroes went largely unmolested. _:Now, why didn't we think of this a long time ago?:_ Rom asked Beni once, after a particularly ferocious feeding session.

Beni only gave a mental shrug and pointed out a half-hidden passage.

It led them eventually to a mind-bogglingly deep chasm that stretched for miles on either side. Looking down, they saw a sullen red glow miles below. The air stank faintly of sulfur. "Bloody hellfire," Rom whispered softly, looking down into the awesome deeps. "That goes down all the way, doesn't it?"

Everyone looked at Hiei, who nodded. "Salxarxis was here, a long time ago. I can feel the echoes." He shivered. "I think he had an argument with someone."

Kuwabara whistled. "That must've been some argument. How are we gonna get across?"

Yuusuke looked thoughtfully at the far wall of the chasm. It was too dim to see if there were any openings in the sheer face. "Hey, Thera, could you check for tunnels over there?"

The Bonewraith gave a grunt and kicked off of Kuwabara's shoulder. The chasm was extremely wide, judging by the time it took her to reach the other side. They almost lost sight of her in the red-tinted murk, but the glow of her eyelights let them keep track of her. At last, she called to them from somewhere up and to their left. "I assume you have a plan, Yuusuke," Rom said, "None of us are any good at flying besides the 'Wraiths."

"You betcha." Yuusuke replied cheerfully and plucked a black-leafed ghost creeper twig out of Rom's chest fur. "Hey, Kurama, twiddle your green thumb and build us a bridge, okay?"

Rom blinked. "Think he can manage that? We're on sheer rock here."

Kurama twirled the tiny twig thoughtfully. "I can. If I can cover a mountain in mutant mint, I can do anything. Even with the carnivorous squirrels."

"Squirrels?" Rom asked.

Kuwabara laughed. "Yeah, squirrels. Just don't blow them up in spring. I still want to know what you and Hiei had to do with those firesprites, Kurama."

"Huh?" Rom was officially baffled now.

"Long story, tell you later." Kurama muttered, blushing slightly.

"What's he talking about?" Yuusuke asked Kuwabara as Kurama concentrated on growing the mother of all vines. "I don't remember anything about squirrels. Except that they throw things."

"Like he said, I'll tell you later." Kuwabara assured him. "We've got work to do now."

There were sharp cracking noises as the huge vine's roots bored into the stone, chips jumping off of their ledge to rain down into the depths. The main trunk wound up and out into the dim air, luminescent blossoms revealing stone spars and arches spanning the gulf above them. Kurama guided out long shoots to grapple and anchor onto these. Excited by this activity, the Bonewraiths soared up and around it, encouraging it with voices that echoed strangely off the walls. Kurama gave a sigh of satisfaction when he finished. Thera ambled down from above, chirped a congratulation, and hopped back onto Kuwabara's shoulder.

The climb up was not as hard as it looked; the gnarled woody cables provided all sorts of handholds that were well-lit by thousands of bright flowers. The fledgling Bonewraiths had a marvellous time racing each other up and down the vines, chattering shrilly all the while. Yuusuke and the others eventually hauled themselves up onto a long stone bridge at the top and sat down for a breather and a snack. "Nice work, Kurama." Yuusuke said, handing him a fruit he'd plucked from the huge vine.

"Thanks." Kurama replied, biting into it. "Mmm. This place looks familiar, I think, at least from this angle."

"Yeah," Kuwabara agreed. "Hey, what's this?" Kuwabara ventured a little way across the bridge and picked up something that glittered. "I think this is yours, Yuusuke."

It was a small crystal lens, just large enough to fit in the circle of forefinger and thumb. As Yuuske took it, a few fragments of memory clicked together in his head. "This was a Christmas present." He said.

"Yup." Kuwabara said rather wistfully, rubbing at one wrist. "I don't know where mine got to, though. I hope I didn't drop it off the edge. 'Quin would be pissed."

Hiei smiled smugly. "I still have mine." He said, pulling his cloak aside to show off his knives.

"Lucky bastard." Kuwabara muttered.

Once they had caught their breath and rounded up the 'Wraiths, they continued on. No more Whisperers manifested, and the tunnel straightened out, resembling a lava tube. It also became pitch black, since no ghost creepers grew here. Rom solved that problem by summoning up a small flame that danced on the tip of his thumb, just bright enough to light their way. It also awoke a golden-blue sparkle from a pothole on one side of the tunnel. On inspection, the sparkle turned out to be Kuwabara's lost shield-bracelet, accompanied by the scorched arm bones of some thief or other. "All right!" Kuwabara said happily, snapping it back onto his wrist. "Now I won't have to explain to 'Quin how I lost it!"

"We may have other problems, though." Hiei warned him. "Whoever it was who lost that arm tried to use it to ward something off."

"On guard, then, everyone." Rom said. "And don't forget that Kyaku's somewhere up ahead, too."

Thus reminded, they continued on their way. As they walked, their surroundings changed subtly. The smooth raw stone gradually gave way to ancient masonry, and an odd, alien reek filled the air. The sound of breathing came faintly to them, and it became slightly lighter, light enough for Rom to extinguish his flame. That turned out to be a good idea, for the tunnel opened out abruptly into an enormous chamber, empty save for a huge dark mound that sprawled across half the room, snoring softly. _:Kyaku,:_ Rom identified it, _:fast asleep. Let's see if we can sneak past him.:_

 _:Good idea.:_ Yuusuke agreed. _:I don't think we want to fight that guy again. There's a way out over there.:_

Yuusuke pointed to a large hole in the far wall, blasted out by some long-forgotten band of adventurers. They recognized it as the way they'd come in. They'd have to be careful though; one of Kyaku's heads lay only a few yards from the exit. _:Let's go.:_

Silent as snails and almost as slow, they crept across the uneven floor, prepared to bolt if the monster showed any sign of waking. Closer... Closer... They could smell fresh air now, tantalizing them with the scent of sun-warmed grass... Extra careful now, they were only a few feet from that dog-like head, big as a van...

Beni gave an explosive hiss, causing everybody to jump and look back at him. Fangs bared, claws out, and hair standing on end, the little albino's flashing eyes were fixed on Kyaku, consumed with hate. Before they could stop him, Beni gave vent to a hideous, nerve-jangling screech of rage and sprang forward with surprising speed to sink all of his sharp points in Kyaku's vulnerable throat. "Oh, shit, that's torn it!" Rom groaned as Kyaku woke with a roar of surprise and pain.

Hauling himself heavily to his feet and lunging forward, Kyaku blocked the only exit, his other two heads craning to see what the first one was so upset about. Yuusuke stared, mesmerized by the sight of the monster. Kyaku was a massive, ill-assorted beast, four stories tall and five long, and massively overweight. Three giant greyhound's heads, constructed queerly upside-down so that the milky orange eyes blazed from low-set sockets in a stiff lower jaw, the creature screaming from the top of its skull, they swung violently on sinuous necks. His shoulders were a riot of conflicting limbs, true hands, eagle talons, dragon claws, all grasping and pawing at the sudden pain in one of his throats. The rest of his body was a dragon's, grossly obese with a long bony tail, scales cracked and moldy from neglect. One of the heads spotted Yuusuke and the others and belched fire at them, forcing them to retreat. The second head followed suit by vomiting forth a bolt of lightning that came close to crisping them, stopped only by Kuwabara's shield. Undaunted, Kyaku raised several of his arms and began hurling everything from fireballs to comets at them, driving them slowly back towards the entrance to the Caverns. Thera and her family had long since fled squealing back, and it seemed our heroes would soon join them. "Guys, this is seriously bad." Kuwabara panted, his shield arm going numb. "If something doesn't go right soon, we're either gonna die or spend the rest of our lives eating bugs. Yuuske, can't you zap this thing?"

"I'll try." Yuusuke said and took careful aim, letting fly with a blast that drained most of his energy and burst harmlessly against Kyaku's flank. Startled by the flash if not by the impact, Kyaku's heads whipped around, finally dislodging Beni, who hit the floor with a thud. Screaming in triumph, the furious horror slammed an enormous forepaw down on him, squishing the cat-eyed albino like a bug. "No!" Rom cried in anguish.

Then the world exploded.

Yuusuke and the others dropped to their knees, trying to shield their streaming eyes from the incredible, all-consuming white radiance. Somewhere far away, they could hear Kyaku screeching in real terror. _**:Ah, my Brother,:**_ a soft, gentle woman's voice resonated through their minds, _**:What a dreadful mask you wear.:**_

 **Go away!** A sepulchral voice behind Kyaku's mindless shrilling cried. **Get ye gone, Ylumina! I will not be bothered!**

 _ **:Yes, you will. You have sulked behind that ugly thing for long enough. It is time and past time you emerged. Take it off or do I need to assist you?:**_

 **That is Unlawful! I have destroyed your chosen Champion, you may not intervene directly. To do so would destroy this place utterly.**

 _ **:Quite right. Therefore-:**_ Yuusuke and the others suddenly felt the Bright One's attention rest on them. It was not a very comfortable feeling. _**:I would claim you as my champions. Will you accept?:**_

Yuusuke wiped his eyes and squinted up at the blazing figure before him. "Will we get out of this alive if we do?"

There was a chuckle from the elemental. _**:You will have a better chance of survival, I promise you that.:**_

Yuusuke looked back at his friends, who shrugged, and nodded. "Okay, count us in, Lady."

 _ **:Very well. But first...:**_

Yuusuke's mind threatened to explode as all of his missing memories returned in a rush. He recalled every fight, every triumph, every petty argument Hiei and Kuwabara ever had. He remembered about the squirrels, especially the carnivorous ones.

Kurama was cleansed inside and out, scoured by purifying light. The lingering grime left by the abuse he had suffered abraded away like old paint under a sandblaster, reduced to faint memories, banished to the back of his mind. He felt really clean and whole for the first time in months.

Rom suddenly rippled with power. Shorn of his sorcery long ago, he nearly lost control as he felt it flooding back. His blood burned with it.

Kuwabara, who despite having his vision returned to him, had been slightly short-sighted ever since. He went a little cross-eyed as he struggled to adjust to abruptly perfect vision.

Hiei merely straightened up and smiled. Ever since the mushroom incident he had felt just slightly off-balance, and occasionally he saw things that did not exist out of the corners of his eyes. This fog burned out of his perceptions under the onslaught of Ylumina's will, and he felt ready to rumble, The dragon on his wrist writhing in eagerness.

The light faded back to the dimness that was there before that awesome manifestation. Kyaku slouched before them, three heads staring down at them with gaping jaws dribbling green fluids and panting with fear and rage. Somehow, big as he was, Kyaku did not look so menacing. Yuusuke smiled at him, feeling his blood surge with the Bright One's blessing. "Party time." He said, raising his hand, focussing crystal held in the circle of thumb and forefinger. "REI GUN!"

Kyaku's center head caught that supercharged blast right in the face, blinding it. Rom followed that up with a similar thought. "Pyroclasm!"

Two heads blind now, Kyaku screamed and thrashed in agony, spitting fire from paws and jaws at random, shielding his remaining eyes. Kuwabara blocked a fireball from torching Yuusuke, then caught Hiei's eye and jerked his head at their foe. Hiei caught on instantly, and together the two swordsmen dashed over to the flailing monstrosity, scaling its steaming flanks, scaling the third neck to reach the remaining undamaged head. Kyaku, too busy spitting poison slime and flame at Rom, Yuusuke, and Kurama, never even noticed their presence until they plunged their swords into his mad orange eyes. With a howl of pain, Kyaku threw them off in one huge, convulsive heave. Kurama, picking a ghost creeper seed out of his teeth, made it sprout all over the place in time to save his teammates from splattering on the ground. Kyaku went absolutely wild, thrashing and rolling, snapping huge fanged jaws and hurling thunderbolts indiscriminately as the maddened elemental drove it beyond its endurance. Kurama tried to tangle the creature up in huge, ropy ghost creeper vines, but Kyaku was beyond feeling pain and struggled free, tearing off several of his own limbs in the process. "Over to you, Hiei!" Yuusuke shouted above the noise.

Hiei tore the ragged bandages off of his arm, exposing the writhing tattoo. "JAOH ENSATSU KOKURYUUHA!"

The Black Dragon needed no encouragement to get out there and do its job. Our heroes hit the floor as the air was suddenly full of dragon, earsplitting bellows, and flying monster parts. Kyaku and Kemuri tore at each other viciously, Kemuri's strong black talons opening great rents in Kyaku's rotting hide, his fangs buried in the monster's mangy throats. With a convulsive wrench, The dragon tore Kyaku open, going for the heart. At that, Kyaku, in one last gesture of violence, exploded.

This time, it was darkness that filled the world, with a shape in the heart of it that was so black that it looked like a hole in space. They felt it watching them with something like bitter amusement. "Who are you?" Yuusuke called to the terrible form, but he already knew in his bones who it was. Nevertheless, it answered him in a voice like the wind beneath the world.

 **You know who I am. Everyone does. They never pay attention, though. I am everywhere; I am always behind people, In front of people, on either side of people, by all things living or no, I am there. I cannot be confined, trapped, studied. I have always been so. People look upon me and laugh, saying that I am harmless. NOT SO!**

 **I can creep into your heart, I can slide into your soul, I can shroud your mind in my robes. In me the hunter waits, in me the killer hides. I can conceal things both great and small. I hold fear and death in my hands. But I dance upon bedsheet screens as the performer amuses children with his hands and a light. I hide the hunted from the hunter, I bring rest to the world. I make all light seem brighter, I bring mercy to the dying, I am essential to balance. I remember when there was nothing, I will see the end of all things. I am both good and evil, though I am often accused of being purely evil, being a trademark of evil. I am misunderstood, I think. It does not matter. It is enough that everyone knows who I am. They never pay attention, though.**

With that, the ancient elemental shouldered aside the ceiling and took its leave, spearing up into the sky like an ebony rocket, leaving clean sunlight to fountain down in its wake. "Kolkarinos, Lord of Darkness." Romfelemars murmured reverentially. "More commonly known as Shade. That was one of the Nine Prime Elementals, guys. Not many have fought that spirit and lived to tell about it, much less fought and won."

 _ **:You are quite correct.:**_ Ylumina agreed, manifesting in the sunbeams. _**:I congratulate you on your victory. You are released from my service and free to go on your way.:**_

"Thanks, Lady," Yuusuke said, "but could you tell us just what he was doing here?"

 _ **:Yes. Part of the problem you saw in that dream you shared; Salxarxis promised him a world to play with on his return from running certain errands, as you remember. The promise was kept. You knew my brother's world as the Netherworld, I believe. When the nether lord Yakumo invaded the Makai, Salxarxis blew most of his army to ashes in a volcanic eruption, thus ruining Yakumo's chances of conquest. On top of that, Salxarxis refused to intervene when Enma destroyed the Netherworld. Kolkarinos has been extremely upset about that for millennia. He took the form of that ugly mutant and has been irritating both Salxarxis and Enma ever since, to the point of neglecting his other duties. It fell to me to send something small and unobtrusive to locate and liberate my errant brother. He would not receive a direct visitation; that chasm you crossed was indeed a side effect of Salxarxis' one attempt to talk some sense into him. I must go now. There are stars to see to.:**_

"Just a minute, ma'am," Rom said, "But could I ask one favor?"

 _ **:Ask away, Romfelemars.:**_

"Could you bring Beni back? I liked him."

The Elemental was a bit startled. _**:Rom, I fished that poor creature out of a Chimera maker's reject heap. If it had not been for my intervention, it would have died as was foreordained. Do you really want it? It will live no longer than a mortal human would.:**_

"Yes, Lady. Even mortal."

 _ **:Very well. Live will, children, and don't let anyone get you down.:**_

The sunbeams curdled strangely as the Elemental faded away, solidifying into one rather confused cat-eyed child. Rom scooped Beni up and hugged him, nearly drowning him in orange fur.

"Hooray for happy endings." Kuwabara sighed. "Hey, Kurama, your cousin's inn is near here, isn't it?"

"The Nine Tails Inn? Yes, it's only about a mile from here." Kurama smiled wryly. "I take it you need a stiff drink as much as I do."

"Try three or four." Kuwabara said.

ooooo

Koko stood behind the bar in his tavern, wiping out a tankard with a clean rag. It was only early in the afternoon, when business was still fairly slow. Kyoki was out visiting Kuronue and would not be back for a day or two. A few patrons sat around the bar, swapping lies. And then there was that explosion a mile or so away, where half a mountain had blown its roof, but that was the only exciting thing, and was probably just someone's failed magical experiment or something. Yep, looked like another quiet day. The door suddenly slammed open with a crash, nearly making Koko drop the tankard, and admitting six figures barely recognizable as people. The largest, a huge furry orange thing, roared one word. "BEER!"

As they came up to the bar, two of the people became familiar. "Cousin Kurama? Uncle Hiei? What happened to you?"

Hiei climbed up onto a barstool and grabbed the front of Koko's shirt, dragging him down to eye level. "Shut up, stupid fox. Dragon's Blood Whiskey. Lots of it. Now."

Koko wasn't about to argue. Instead, he brought out six tankards and filled five of them to the brim with foaming red liquor, and the sixth, for some reason, with goat's milk. He let the Urameshi team get nicely mellow before asking again what they'd been up to. They responded by telling him, in speech that got more and more slurred as their tankards were emptied and refilled, a tale that sounded impossible, even for this particular team. Then again, that explosion he'd heard earlier...

"'N then, an' then, I did the ol' Jaoh Entatsu." Hiei hiccuped. "Th' Kokuryhoohah. The Kokuryahoo. Th' Dlak Bragon- hic! - Thingy. Tor'm right up. Yah. More whiskey."

Koko rolled his eyes, refilled his uncle's tankard, and looked around the bar. The other customers, having realized that they were in the presence of masters, watched them chug their drinks with reverence. Kuwabara snorted into his drink. "'S damn fine ol' lizard you got, Shorty. Tor'm right up."

"Don' you call my dragon a lizard you, you, you... Mr. Broccoli!"

"I'll Mr. Broccoli you, yer friggin' lil' mrglephssht..." Kuwabara slid off of his stool and began to snore.

"Mr. Broccoli." Hiei giggled.

Koko sighed and popped open another bottle of whiskey. It was at that point that Enma himself walked in, looked around, and headed for the bar. Ignoring Koko, he picked Yuusuke up from the floor, and with a gesture, sobered him up. Yuusuke blinked at Enma, and then screamed. "Aagh! you ruined it! I went to a lot of trouble to get that drunk!"

Enma put him down, wiping his hand on his shirt. "I see you have carried out your assignment, that of destroying Kyaku, after all. It certainly took you long enough. It's been six months since I gave you that assignment. In the future, I'll expect you to conclude your operations in a much shorter period of time."

Yuusuke began to twitch. God or no, this idiot had the absolute gall to come in here, sober him up, and tell him off for taking six months to wipe out an enemy that had stumped him for a thousand years and more...

Koko caught Yuusuke's eye. "Normally, I don't allow violence in my bar, but in this case, go ahead."

Enma had totally misunderstood, of course. No, thank you, I never administer the Hundred-Blow Spanking in public-"

He never got a chance to finish. With a howl of insane rage, Yuusuke swung around and slammed Enma a mighty punch, right in the eye, knocking the god cold. "Arlo," Koko alerted the bouncer, who had been watching these events with a certain amount of glee, "toss that jerk in the dumpster, will you?"

The bouncer was all too glad to comply.

Yuusuke was staring at his fist, giggling manically. "I just punched out God. That was fun. I need a drink."

Koko poured out three more whiskeys. "On the house." He said.

Yuusuke grabbed all three, downed them, and passed out cold.

ooooo

The next day, Piper came by. "Have you seen the Urameshi team lately? There was a bit of an upheaval near here, and they've been missing for half a year. By the way, what was Enma doing in your dumpster with that amazing black eye? It'll be a week before he can see out of it again."

"He sobered Yuuske up and chewed him out for taking so long to kill Kyaku, so Yuusuke hit him. As for him and his teammates, they're upstairs sleeping it off." Koko replied. "I hope you brought hangover cures with you, they're going to need it."

"I was afraid of that. Will I need to pay their bill for them?"

"Yup." Koko said, pulling it out and unrolling it.

Piper whistled. "Wow. Amazing that four people could drink so much."

"Five. Six if you count the goat's milk."

"Huh. They must have picked up a couple of friends along the way, then. Well, they're wanted at home, so I'll pay up and get them, shall I?" Piper handed Koko a pouch of gold. "Keep the change." With that, he went upstairs, leaving Koko to count his profit.

"I'll warn you, Kurama and Hiei took one of my little bottles up to bed with them!" Koko called up after him, referring to the powerful aphrodisiac he sold in addition to alcohol.

"Gotcha. There should be enough in that pouch to deal with property damage, too, so don't go charging me any more."

"Worth a shot."

Piper pulled open the first door on the landing and walked into the room. Yuusuke was sprawled comfortably in a tangle of blankets on the bed, looking almost innocent. Piper was sorry to have to wake him up, but Keiko had insisted. Gently, he reached over and shook the young man's shoulder, and then hit the floor as Yuuske leaped up and blasted a hole in the wall right where Piper's head had been a moment before. Yuusuke opened his eyes. "Whuzt?" He said, and then wilted into a heap as the hangover hit. "Urgle."

Piper got him to swallow a hangover cure without too much difficulty. "Time to get up, kid," Piper said, "Keiko threatened to stomp over here and fetch you herself, and your mother wanted to come help just as soon as she figured out how many legs she had. You've lost half a year, and we've all been very worried."

Yuusuke brushed his hair out of his eyes and sighed heavily. "Did I really floor Enma last night?"

"Oh, yes. He's still in the dumpster. Let's go get the rest of the crew upright, shall we?"

Easier said than done. Rom and Beni took it fairly well, but they decided to head off to Rom's home town instead of the Ningenkai. "I don't have any relatives among humans, and neither does the little guy." He informed Piper before curling back up.

Kuwabara was all too happy to be heading home when Piper told him that Yukina wanted to hear every single detail of their adventure up close and in person. "She misses you incredibly, you know," Piper informed him.

Kurama and Hiei were considerably more reluctant to leave, since the effects of the little bottle hadn't quite worn off yet. Diplomatically, Piper decided to let them finish and took Yuusuke and Kuwabara down for some breakfast. "Just what did happen over there?" He asked as the two young men wolfed their way through a plate of cucumber sandwiches. "The spectrometers went clear through the roof. We haven't had to deal with a spiritual upheaval like that since Enma fragged the Netherworld."

Yuususke washed down his sandwich with a gulp of iced tea. "Believe it or not, that event had a lot to do with this one. First we found out that Kyaku was actually a duck blind for Kolkarinos, then Ylumina showed up, and then we blew up Kyaku. We'll give you the whole story when we get to Genkai's."

Kurama and Hiei descended the stairs with great dignity a little later, and then lost all dignity by attacking the sandwich plate with extreme gusto. They went through several more piles of sandwiches before they could persuade Hiei to leave, and even then they had to draw him out by dangling a chicken leg just out of his reach. When they arrived at Genkai's temple, he was still gnawing on the greasy bone, but was forced to drop it when Yukina flew out of the building, grabbed both him and Kuwabara and plastered their faces with kisses. Genkai came out shortly behind her, fixed them all with a steely glare and demanded to know just what had taken them so long to get back. Kurama laughed. "Careful how you ask that, Genkai! Enma asked almost the same question and wound up in a tavern dumpster with a black eye."

Genkai snorted in amusesment. "He didn't!"

"He did." Piper assured her, and handed her a polaroid picture. "If you check those knuckle prints, I think you'll recognize them."

Cackling, Genkai dragged everyone inside to hear the story.

ooooo

It might be noted that Enma had the grace to forgive Yuuske for flooring him; even so, the entire Reikai was snickering about it for weeks, and the nickname "Shiner" followed him around for longer than that.

 **The End**

 **A/N: The Hedgehog Song is the property of the inestimable Terry Pratchett. If you don't know who that is, shame on you! Google it right now. Yes, right now! And read everything on his list!**


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